5 ms·

Java SE Subscription FAQ

10 points by protomyth 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago
Why isn’t everyone running away from Java as fast as possible? Oracle is the last company I would want to depend on for a critical piece of functionality....
- tytytytytytytyt 8y ago
  Is OpenJDK bad?
- exabrial 8y ago
  How is commercial support a bad thing? They're paying people to work on the JVM.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Microsoft pays people to work on .Net and Apple pays people to work on Swift. Google pays people to work on Node and Facebook pays people to work on React. What’s the difference?
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Most FLOSS developers do/have run away from Java as fast as possible, from what I can gather. The language itself isn't terrible (arguably). How many companies that use Java use it because of legacy code or because of crusty old senior developers who insist on using it since they learned it back in the good ol' days when it was under Sun?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I’m one of those crusty old developers, but with C# not Java. But I see the writing on the wall that while there are still new implementations and companies wanting .Net, all of the cool kids are doing Node. Even with developers who are doing .Net, hopefully they are smart enough to be slowly moving away from .Net framework to .Net Core. As I’ve gotten more into cloud, I’m seeing how much of a burden it is to stick with Windows - it’s more resource intensive, more expensive licensing and less well supported.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      I will never bail from .net to node. It'd be like cutting off my nose to spite my face. Javascript, and the ecosystem around it is so bad, I don't have words to describe it.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        I agree completely. I hate everything about the JavaScript ecosystem but like Kosh said, “once the avalanche has started, it’s too late for the pebbles to vote.” I need JavaScript in my back pocket just to stay relevant.
- jsiepkes 8y ago
  I don't think you realise how the Java ecosystem works. It's not like with .net where MS does almost everything. You can still use OpenJDK (which is what Oracle Java is based on). Oracle just put their OpenJDK distro in a subscription model. Just like RedHat does with RHEL in which case there is CentOS. But all development still happens in OpenJDK. So for example for OpenJDK there are a bunch of other distros for OpenJDK like Zulu: https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/ https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/ And if you really hate Oracle and want nothing to do with OpenJDK you can also use IBM's J9 JVM: https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ Also Java is developed by more then only Oracle as you can see in the various JCP projects: https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=380 https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=380 And historically the largest part of Java development happens in the community. Like Akka, very.x, etc. Where in .net MS has more a tendency to put everything in the language itself.
  - iamcreasy 8y ago
    What are the differences among these JDKs? Will JRE always remain free?
    - jsiepkes 8y ago
      Well in case of Oracle JRE vs Azul Zing JRE they are both derived from OpenJDK and the technical differences are minimal. There is some minimal difference like Oracle has a (legacy) commercial font renderer and Zing is build with LLVM instead of GCC by default. Almost all OS'es besides Windows and OS X (So Linux distros, FreeBSD, SmartOS, etc) already build and distribute OpenJDK themselves. So this is all really just about Windows and OS X. You can easily compile OpenJDK yourself but I would recommend anyone to just move to Azul Zing and you won't notice any difference from the Oracle JRE. There are also full fledged JVM's which have their own codebase like OpenJ9 (the formally IBM JVM which is now opensourced under Eclipse governance), Azul Zulu (not to be confused with Azul Zing!), etc. These are all Java compatible JVM implementations and have their own pros and cons. Zulu for example is a commercial JVM that has a pauseless garbage collector. So to be clear; These are NOT derived from OpenJDK. Some background on JRE vs JDK. The JRE is the Java runtime environment so basically the JVM plus soms tools. This is what you need to run Java applications. The JDK also contains the Java compiler and some development tools.
exabrial 8y ago
If you need mission critical support, this is great. I'm happy to see commercial operations around an open source project. If you are low budget but need a high-quality JVM, this project is up-and-coming: https://adoptopenjdk.net/index.html https://adoptopenjdk.net/index.html

10 points by protomyth 8y ago

Why isn’t everyone running away from Java as fast as possible? Oracle is the last company I would want to depend on for a critical piece of functionality....

tytytytytytytyt 8y ago
Is OpenJDK bad?
exabrial 8y ago
How is commercial support a bad thing? They're paying people to work on the JVM.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Microsoft pays people to work on .Net and Apple pays people to work on Swift. Google pays people to work on Node and Facebook pays people to work on React. What’s the difference?
craftyguy 8y ago
Most FLOSS developers do/have run away from Java as fast as possible, from what I can gather. The language itself isn't terrible (arguably). How many companies that use Java use it because of legacy code or because of crusty old senior developers who insist on using it since they learned it back in the good ol' days when it was under Sun?
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m one of those crusty old developers, but with C# not Java. But I see the writing on the wall that while there are still new implementations and companies wanting .Net, all of the cool kids are doing Node. Even with developers who are doing .Net, hopefully they are smart enough to be slowly moving away from .Net framework to .Net Core. As I’ve gotten more into cloud, I’m seeing how much of a burden it is to stick with Windows - it’s more resource intensive, more expensive licensing and less well supported.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    I will never bail from .net to node. It'd be like cutting off my nose to spite my face. Javascript, and the ecosystem around it is so bad, I don't have words to describe it.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      I agree completely. I hate everything about the JavaScript ecosystem but like Kosh said, “once the avalanche has started, it’s too late for the pebbles to vote.” I need JavaScript in my back pocket just to stay relevant.
jsiepkes 8y ago
I don't think you realise how the Java ecosystem works. It's not like with .net where MS does almost everything. You can still use OpenJDK (which is what Oracle Java is based on). Oracle just put their OpenJDK distro in a subscription model. Just like RedHat does with RHEL in which case there is CentOS. But all development still happens in OpenJDK. So for example for OpenJDK there are a bunch of other distros for OpenJDK like Zulu: https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/ https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/ And if you really hate Oracle and want nothing to do with OpenJDK you can also use IBM's J9 JVM: https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ Also Java is developed by more then only Oracle as you can see in the various JCP projects: https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=380 https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=380 And historically the largest part of Java development happens in the community. Like Akka, very.x, etc. Where in .net MS has more a tendency to put everything in the language itself.
- iamcreasy 8y ago
  What are the differences among these JDKs? Will JRE always remain free?
  - jsiepkes 8y ago
    Well in case of Oracle JRE vs Azul Zing JRE they are both derived from OpenJDK and the technical differences are minimal. There is some minimal difference like Oracle has a (legacy) commercial font renderer and Zing is build with LLVM instead of GCC by default. Almost all OS'es besides Windows and OS X (So Linux distros, FreeBSD, SmartOS, etc) already build and distribute OpenJDK themselves. So this is all really just about Windows and OS X. You can easily compile OpenJDK yourself but I would recommend anyone to just move to Azul Zing and you won't notice any difference from the Oracle JRE. There are also full fledged JVM's which have their own codebase like OpenJ9 (the formally IBM JVM which is now opensourced under Eclipse governance), Azul Zulu (not to be confused with Azul Zing!), etc. These are all Java compatible JVM implementations and have their own pros and cons. Zulu for example is a commercial JVM that has a pauseless garbage collector. So to be clear; These are NOT derived from OpenJDK. Some background on JRE vs JDK. The JRE is the Java runtime environment so basically the JVM plus soms tools. This is what you need to run Java applications. The JDK also contains the Java compiler and some development tools.

exabrial 8y ago

If you need mission critical support, this is great. I'm happy to see commercial operations around an open source project. If you are low budget but need a high-quality JVM, this project is up-and-coming: https://adoptopenjdk.net/index.html https://adoptopenjdk.net/index.html