I apologize as I wasn't trying to be negative by suggesting your project might fail. You should always use the best technology choice (for a lot of reasons).

I apologize as I wasn't trying to be negative by suggesting your project might fail. You should always use the best technology choice (for a lot of reasons). There was a recent HN post about over-engineering side projects, and the top comment was (paraphrased) "Over engineering is the point of a side project!". I think there is a counter if you want your side project to be successful, and that's to leverage as much technology as you can to make your MVP. Licensing costs don't change whether or not it's the best technology to solve the problem. That's why I wouldn't worry about it. There might be another promising JVM language you could use without the legal hassle, but if you've already determined Java is the best choice, the development costs of using something else will outweigh the legal costs.