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Title is baiting. Want updates for legacy? Pay up. --------- Edit: Sorry, I might be a bit wrong. I thought non-business users wouldn't get free updates too.

geezerjay 9y ago
Nail in the head. I had to double-check how old Java 8 was, and in the process I've learned that it was initially released way back in 2014 and currently Oracle is already working on releasing Java 11.
- LudoA 9y ago
  The release date of Java 8 doesn't matter. Nor does the fact that they're working on Java 11 (which is only because Oracle just started doing fast releases). What matters is when Java 9 became available. I.e. how much have they had to migrate from Java 8 to its first successor: Java 9. Java 9 is available since summer 2017. So that means companies will get only 1.5 years to migrate all of their Java 8 apps to the next available version. Which is very, very little for large organizations who may have many hundreds of apps running on Java 8.
  - pdpi 9y ago
    For the Java 5 -> Java 6 transition, Java 5 was publicly updated for 3 years after Java 6 was released. 6->7 saw 6 supported for 21 more months, 7->8 was a rather short 13 months. For 8->9, this announcement means it'll be 17 months of support after Java 8 is no longer current, which is in perfectly line with what they've been doing.
    - LudoA 9y ago
      Except Java 9 is already no longer supported. The next viable Java version after Java 8 is Java 11, which is an LTS version. Java 11 will come out around September this year. So in reality, this means organizations have a couple months to migrate everything from Java 8 to Java 11. Laughable.
      - mcroft 9y ago
        Also, once you get to Java 11, you need to either pay for the LTS version or be prepared to update Java every 6 months with no overlap. Because of the increased release cadence, there is also no guarantee that there won't be breaking changes between LTS versions. (Java 9 already became the first Java release ever to actually remove deprecated classes, although in a very minor way).
        carlos22 9y ago
        Older Eclipse based software does not work with Java 9.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    Are there many breaking changes between java versions? I know Microsoft tries to avoid that with .net and upgrading to a new version is often just changing a setting and recompile, but I have no experience with java.
    - time0ut 9y ago
      It is the same with Java. The only breaking changes I have seen were when old code used things that became keywords in newer versions. That said, new version of Java means a new runtime and all the issues that can introduce. Running an application on the new version has always been pretty easy. It's recertifying it and possibly tuning things like garbage collection that make this daunting for a large organization.
    - Piskvorrr 9y ago
      recompile ^ There, that could be a problem. I have a couple of anfient Java apps that I have no source code for. Some of them were written for Java 7 and no longer work with Java 9. (Fixable with a tweaked OpenJDK JRE, yes, somewhat)
    - pilif 9y ago
      due to the modularization effort that went into Java 9, a lot of previously accidentally exposed internals have become inaccessible. Unfortunately, many widely used libraries depended on said exposed internals and now stopped working. Many libraries have since been updated, but often in form of new major releases and not all libraries give the same backwards compatibility guarantees as Java itself does. So even if you yourself were a good citizen, relied only on public interfaces and got rid of uses of deprecated API in a timely fashion, then some libraries you depend on might not have done so or might have changed a lot since you last updated them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I had to double-check how old Java 8 was, and in the process I've learned that it was initially released way back in 2014 and currently Oracle is already working on releasing Java 11. That's 4 years. In the Java world releases could take way more than that for a SINGLE release. So, this "8 is 4 years old, we're at 11 now (and n+1 every few months)" is a totally new model for Java.
velmu 9y ago
Yes, nothing new here. Oracle will stop free updates to LTS [1], and users of Java will need to either stay on the bleeding edge releases or pay for LTS. An alternative is use the AdoptOpenJDK [2] that aims to provide unofficial LTS support. [1]: https://react-etc.net/entry/oracle-to-stop-providing-a-free-java-jdk-with-long-term-support-lts' https://react-etc.net/entry/oracle-to-stop-providing-a-free-... [2]: https://adoptopenjdk.net https://adoptopenjdk.net
- jerven 9y ago
  Or get an JDK from Azul or RedHat or another JDK provider e.g. IBM. All it says if you want to get a new Oracle JDK 8 once JDK11 is out you will need to pay, if one gets it from somewhere else ask them not Oracle.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Yes, nothing new here. Oracle will stop free updates to LTS [1], and users of Java will need to either stay on the bleeding edge releases or pay for LTS. Well, that's a NEW development. And a major one at that. Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN). They might still do that, with OpenJDK, but not with Oracle releases anymore.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Not really, you had to have an Oracle account to have access to legacy JDKs and sign an agreement that you were aware of the security issues of relying on outdated releases. What they are doing is stepping up the challenge of insisting in e.g. using Java 1.4 in 2018 (Yes I do know a few such cases).
  - throwaway3984 9y ago
    > Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN). People have already had years of support for Java 8 including support updates. By 2019 they will have had five years of it. Nothing's changed.
toyg 9y ago
A bit cheeky that they do this at a time when moving on is particularly expensive. Nobody would have had issues with this sort of behaviour between 6 and 7, or even 7 and 8, because backward compatibility was massive. From what I understand, that's not exactly the case with 9.
- LudoA 9y ago
  Pretty sure that Java 9 should still fully support apps written for older versions of Java. However, apps written specifically for Java 9 (e.g. using the new modules system) wouldn't work on older versions of Java.
  - tragic 9y ago
    It's a little more complicated than that; for example, a good many clojure libraries were broken by Java 9. I haven't been writing clojure day to day for about six months, so I don't know how things are looking just now. But it would be a non trivial task to migrate a lot of clojure apps over.
    - dantiberian 9y ago
      I don’t think that many libraries were broken by Java 9. There was a bit of tooling, and ClojureScript required adding a module, but I haven’t come across any major broken libs yet. Let me know if you have examples I can add to my Clojure Java 9 upgrade guide: https://www.deps.co/blog/how-to-upgrade-clojure-projects-to-use-java-9/ https://www.deps.co/blog/how-to-upgrade-clojure-projects-to-...
ThoAppelsin 9y ago
How is it baiting when it perfectly summarizes the whole news, with no misguidance, no unbased speculations? "Java SE 8 business users must buy a license from January next year" is not a luringly reworded way that (mis)guides the reader to think that something exciting is going on which -- this part is very important for something to be a bait -- actually is just a speculation or is not happening at all. It rather exactly is what is happening.
- throwaway3984 9y ago
  The title _is_ inaccurate. Java SE 8 business users do not need to buy a licence to keep using Java from January next year. That's not true. It's false. They can keep using the current versions of Java 8 as long as they like, for free. What won't be free is for Oracle to give them new updated versions of Java 8. This has _always_ been the case. Oracle always stops supporting old Java releases at some point. Do you think they should maintain them forever for free?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Because those users can avoid paying anything if they actually bother to upgrade to a newer version.
- NullPrefix 9y ago
  It's doesn't summarize, because the key thing is in the second line of title. >Or they'll no longer be entitled to updates and bug patches They aren't converting a free product into a paid one. As I understand you can use whatever you're using right now, it's just that you won't get free updates. IIRC Microsoft does this with old versions of Windows. Want updates for XP? Pay us and we'll support it with bugfixes. Or don't pay us and get your support on 3rd party forums. --------- Edit: Sorry, I might be a bit wrong. I thought non-business users wouldn't get free updates too.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jacques_chester 9y ago
  > How is it baiting when it perfectly summarizes the whole news, with no misguidance, no unbased speculations? Because the implication is that this is a surprise, a novelty -- that it's "new" and hence News -- meaning that something changed and that it was a motivated change. Which isn't true. Every enterprise software company publishes policies about how much support it will give its products well into the future. I work for Pivotal, we have a general support/lifetime policy and aim to give explicit guidance for every single release we publish of everything we produce. That folks outside the enterprise universe are learning now what Oracle outlined years ago doesn't make it an evil scheme on Oracle's part. It just means we move in different circles from enterprise buyers, who have different problems and motivations. I honestly can't believe I'm defending Oracle. Seriously, I never thought I'd see the day.

geezerjay 9y ago

Nail in the head. I had to double-check how old Java 8 was, and in the process I've learned that it was initially released way back in 2014 and currently Oracle is already working on releasing Java 11.

LudoA 9y ago
The release date of Java 8 doesn't matter. Nor does the fact that they're working on Java 11 (which is only because Oracle just started doing fast releases). What matters is when Java 9 became available. I.e. how much have they had to migrate from Java 8 to its first successor: Java 9. Java 9 is available since summer 2017. So that means companies will get only 1.5 years to migrate all of their Java 8 apps to the next available version. Which is very, very little for large organizations who may have many hundreds of apps running on Java 8.
- pdpi 9y ago
  For the Java 5 -> Java 6 transition, Java 5 was publicly updated for 3 years after Java 6 was released. 6->7 saw 6 supported for 21 more months, 7->8 was a rather short 13 months. For 8->9, this announcement means it'll be 17 months of support after Java 8 is no longer current, which is in perfectly line with what they've been doing.
  - LudoA 9y ago
    Except Java 9 is already no longer supported. The next viable Java version after Java 8 is Java 11, which is an LTS version. Java 11 will come out around September this year. So in reality, this means organizations have a couple months to migrate everything from Java 8 to Java 11. Laughable.
    - mcroft 9y ago
      Also, once you get to Java 11, you need to either pay for the LTS version or be prepared to update Java every 6 months with no overlap. Because of the increased release cadence, there is also no guarantee that there won't be breaking changes between LTS versions. (Java 9 already became the first Java release ever to actually remove deprecated classes, although in a very minor way).
      - carlos22 9y ago
        Older Eclipse based software does not work with Java 9.
- cm2187 9y ago
  Are there many breaking changes between java versions? I know Microsoft tries to avoid that with .net and upgrading to a new version is often just changing a setting and recompile, but I have no experience with java.
  - time0ut 9y ago
    It is the same with Java. The only breaking changes I have seen were when old code used things that became keywords in newer versions. That said, new version of Java means a new runtime and all the issues that can introduce. Running an application on the new version has always been pretty easy. It's recertifying it and possibly tuning things like garbage collection that make this daunting for a large organization.
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    recompile ^ There, that could be a problem. I have a couple of anfient Java apps that I have no source code for. Some of them were written for Java 7 and no longer work with Java 9. (Fixable with a tweaked OpenJDK JRE, yes, somewhat)
  - pilif 9y ago
    due to the modularization effort that went into Java 9, a lot of previously accidentally exposed internals have become inaccessible. Unfortunately, many widely used libraries depended on said exposed internals and now stopped working. Many libraries have since been updated, but often in form of new major releases and not all libraries give the same backwards compatibility guarantees as Java itself does. So even if you yourself were a good citizen, relied only on public interfaces and got rid of uses of deprecated API in a timely fashion, then some libraries you depend on might not have done so or might have changed a lot since you last updated them.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 9y ago
>I had to double-check how old Java 8 was, and in the process I've learned that it was initially released way back in 2014 and currently Oracle is already working on releasing Java 11. That's 4 years. In the Java world releases could take way more than that for a SINGLE release. So, this "8 is 4 years old, we're at 11 now (and n+1 every few months)" is a totally new model for Java.

velmu 9y ago

Yes, nothing new here. Oracle will stop free updates to LTS [1], and users of Java will need to either stay on the bleeding edge releases or pay for LTS. An alternative is use the AdoptOpenJDK [2] that aims to provide unofficial LTS support. [1]: https://react-etc.net/entry/oracle-to-stop-providing-a-free-java-jdk-with-long-term-support-lts' https://react-etc.net/entry/oracle-to-stop-providing-a-free-... [2]: https://adoptopenjdk.net https://adoptopenjdk.net

jerven 9y ago
Or get an JDK from Azul or RedHat or another JDK provider e.g. IBM. All it says if you want to get a new Oracle JDK 8 once JDK11 is out you will need to pay, if one gets it from somewhere else ask them not Oracle.
coldtea 9y ago
>Yes, nothing new here. Oracle will stop free updates to LTS [1], and users of Java will need to either stay on the bleeding edge releases or pay for LTS. Well, that's a NEW development. And a major one at that. Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN). They might still do that, with OpenJDK, but not with Oracle releases anymore.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Not really, you had to have an Oracle account to have access to legacy JDKs and sign an agreement that you were aware of the security issues of relying on outdated releases. What they are doing is stepping up the challenge of insisting in e.g. using Java 1.4 in 2018 (Yes I do know a few such cases).
- throwaway3984 9y ago
  > Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN). People have already had years of support for Java 8 including support updates. By 2019 they will have had five years of it. Nothing's changed.

toyg 9y ago

A bit cheeky that they do this at a time when moving on is particularly expensive. Nobody would have had issues with this sort of behaviour between 6 and 7, or even 7 and 8, because backward compatibility was massive. From what I understand, that's not exactly the case with 9.

LudoA 9y ago
Pretty sure that Java 9 should still fully support apps written for older versions of Java. However, apps written specifically for Java 9 (e.g. using the new modules system) wouldn't work on older versions of Java.
- tragic 9y ago
  It's a little more complicated than that; for example, a good many clojure libraries were broken by Java 9. I haven't been writing clojure day to day for about six months, so I don't know how things are looking just now. But it would be a non trivial task to migrate a lot of clojure apps over.
  - dantiberian 9y ago
    I don’t think that many libraries were broken by Java 9. There was a bit of tooling, and ClojureScript required adding a module, but I haven’t come across any major broken libs yet. Let me know if you have examples I can add to my Clojure Java 9 upgrade guide: https://www.deps.co/blog/how-to-upgrade-clojure-projects-to-use-java-9/ https://www.deps.co/blog/how-to-upgrade-clojure-projects-to-...

ThoAppelsin 9y ago

How is it baiting when it perfectly summarizes the whole news, with no misguidance, no unbased speculations? "Java SE 8 business users must buy a license from January next year" is not a luringly reworded way that (mis)guides the reader to think that something exciting is going on which -- this part is very important for something to be a bait -- actually is just a speculation or is not happening at all. It rather exactly is what is happening.

throwaway3984 9y ago
The title _is_ inaccurate. Java SE 8 business users do not need to buy a licence to keep using Java from January next year. That's not true. It's false. They can keep using the current versions of Java 8 as long as they like, for free. What won't be free is for Oracle to give them new updated versions of Java 8. This has _always_ been the case. Oracle always stops supporting old Java releases at some point. Do you think they should maintain them forever for free?
pjmlp 9y ago
Because those users can avoid paying anything if they actually bother to upgrade to a newer version.
NullPrefix 9y ago
It's doesn't summarize, because the key thing is in the second line of title. >Or they'll no longer be entitled to updates and bug patches They aren't converting a free product into a paid one. As I understand you can use whatever you're using right now, it's just that you won't get free updates. IIRC Microsoft does this with old versions of Windows. Want updates for XP? Pay us and we'll support it with bugfixes. Or don't pay us and get your support on 3rd party forums. --------- Edit: Sorry, I might be a bit wrong. I thought non-business users wouldn't get free updates too.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jacques_chester 9y ago
> How is it baiting when it perfectly summarizes the whole news, with no misguidance, no unbased speculations? Because the implication is that this is a surprise, a novelty -- that it's "new" and hence News -- meaning that something changed and that it was a motivated change. Which isn't true. Every enterprise software company publishes policies about how much support it will give its products well into the future. I work for Pivotal, we have a general support/lifetime policy and aim to give explicit guidance for every single release we publish of everything we produce. That folks outside the enterprise universe are learning now what Oracle outlined years ago doesn't make it an evil scheme on Oracle's part. It just means we move in different circles from enterprise buyers, who have different problems and motivations. I honestly can't believe I'm defending Oracle. Seriously, I never thought I'd see the day.