14 ms·

At what point do we finally draw the line on Oracle and say enough is enough, we're forking? Oracle clearly seem interested only in trying to exploit Java deve

by mabbo 8y ago

At what point do we finally draw the line on Oracle and say enough is enough, we're forking? Oracle clearly seem interested only in trying to exploit Java developer and users. Why are we still stuck to them?

oblio 8y ago
They own the trademark, they own the TCK and Java itself is a huge amount of tech, not something easy to fork. Plus it would be really hard to get adoption for the fork. The Java brand is huge and many of its users are late adopters or even laggards.
- kjeetgill 8y ago
  The TCK was recently open sourced!
  - oblio 8y ago
    Oh, interesting. Didn't know that.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    Link? Surely we're talking about the regular TCK to confirm my Java impl is compliant and not EE.
    - alanfranzoni 8y ago
      https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jakartaee-tck/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jakartaee-tck/blob/master/RE...
      - kodablah 8y ago
        That's EE. Not the TCK that people have complained about their subjective licensing of (e.g. Apache Harmony). When they really open the TCK, that would be nice. In the meantime, this is just for EE stuff of which licensing matters little these days.
kjeetgill 8y ago
I get all the hate for Oracle the company, but they've taken the time to systematically open source every closed source thing they've had: JFR, ZGC, GraalVM (partially), and finally the crown jewel the TCK. They've even been involved in getting the open community up and running. I sincerely can't imagine what more you could want from a corporate steward.
- Ygg2 8y ago
  > I sincerely can't imagine what more you could want from a corporate steward. To generally not try to pull the rug from under you by changing licenses?
  - jerven 8y ago
    This was not pulling the rug from under you. This was them clearly stating they where going to pull the rug, you ignoring all their shouts, signs and warnings and then blundering. I think the onus is on us for not reading and listening.
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      Meanwhile .NET Core is MIT Licensed and the language spec for C# is still standardized and open to re-implement (hence something like Vala is possible). If you didn't want to drink Microsoft's koolaid it's free as in free beer and as in freedom, can't say the same about Oracles.
      - solarkraft 8y ago
        Can you explain how Vala builds on C#?
        giancarlostoro 8y ago
        It's mostly inspired by the syntax of C# but the spec of C# is standardized so I could see them or someone else going further with it. The real value in C# is the underlying stack aka the .NET Framework that gives you all the tools and toys to get things done.
Pyxl101 8y ago
The latest versions of Java will continue to be free. All you need to do to "pay" for that is remain up to date. Only maintenance on older versions of Java will be subscription based. Why is Oracle obliged to provide long-term binary support and updates for old free software? If you want long-term support for old Java versions, then I think it's reasonable to say: pay for a subscription (or don't complain). RedHad uses a similar business model. Or keep using the latest versions which will continue to be free, and stay up to date. It seems like a reasonable proposition to me. I don't see what Oracle has done wrong here.
- danieldk 8y ago
  The latest versions of Java will continue to be free. All you need to do to "pay" for that is remain up to date. Only maintenance on older versions of Java will be subscription based. Only free for non-production use. This was on HN yesterday: https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-11-trap.html https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-...
  - Pyxl101 8y ago
    I believe you're mistaken. The article is saying that there are two versions of Java, and one has the license that you mentioned while the other is free and open source. From that article: https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-11-trap.html https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-... > As well as their commercial JDK, Oracle produce an OpenJDK build. It is $free, zero-cost and GPL licensed (with Classpath exception so safe for commercial use). Download $free Java here: https://jdk.java.net/11/ https://jdk.java.net/11/ jdk.java.net/11 in turn says: > This page provides production-ready open-source builds of the Java Development Kit, version 11, an implementation of the Java SE 11 Platform under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception.
    - smarx007 8y ago
      Exactly! https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk11-downloads-5066655.html https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk... clearly says in a RED box that "With JDK 11 Oracle has updated the license terms on which we offer the Oracle JDK. The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from the licenses under which previous versions of the JDK were offered. Please review the new terms carefully before downloading and using this product. Oracle also offers this software under the GPL License on jdk.java.net/11"
MaxBarraclough 8y ago
> At what point do we finally draw the line on Oracle and say enough is enough, we're forking? But we already have OpenJDK. What would be gained by completely cutting ties with Oracle?
skgoa 8y ago
> Oracle clearly seem interested only in trying to exploit Java developer and users. Oracle are just not giving users of obsolete, deprecated versions of Java free patches anymore. They want everyone to keep up to date with the current version. The likes of Apple, Microsoft and Google just force push updates to achieve the same goal, but Oracle doesn't have that kind of control. Yet even though Oracle don't want to support old versions anymore, they still offer support contracts for those organizations that truly need it. Which is a completely normal thing in the tech industry. What part of that is exploitation?
- Nursie 8y ago
  > Oracle are just not giving users ... free patches anymore IIRC they are also making commercial (non-development) use of Oracle JVMs 11+ something that they will charge for. I don't think this was true of earlier versions.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    It was, many Oracle JDK features were only freely available for development, like the Flight Control, for example.
    - Nursie 8y ago
      > many Oracle JDK features were only freely available for development, Sure, but you could use the Oracle-branded JVM in production, AFAICT, for free before.
      - krzyk 8y ago
        But the difference between Oracle branded and OpenJDK is almost non-existent anymore. Do you use Oracle specific features that are not in OpenJDK?
        Nursie 8y ago
        No, and we'll be fine moving to an OpenJDK build when we move to Java 11 (from 8) in a month or so. Please don't mistake my comments for complaints - I'm just noting that things have changed in the licensing terms for Oracle-branded JVMs. There is an easy and simple way forward, to use OpenJDK, it's important to note the change and act accordingly. That's all.
pjmlp 8y ago
When you get the money to pay the Oracle engineers working on JVM and Graal. Also apparently many have a short memory regarding Sun and IBM's Java business pratices and hating Oracle is fun.
- tajen 8y ago
  But not acting could be worse, it could ruin the whole sector of Java, Scala and the JVM, be it discredit or economic irrelevance.
afroboy 8y ago
And who is going to pay the great minds behind JVM? you are missing the point that there is great engineers working on Java that need high pay and apparently only Oracle that can do that. see GraalVM as an example of how Java become more good under Oracle yes Oracle is evil but for god sake they are the best thing happened to java (the language and the JVM).
akerro 8y ago
>Why are we still stuck to them? Because even literally the most used Java library - JUnit is struggling financially, because everyone wants to use great technologies for free and donations and open-source contributions are never considered. I worked in huge financial institutions once, they heavily relay on some ant plugin. The plugin had a bug, probably like a day of fixing for me. The company decided to stop using the plugin, rewrite the whole configuration in bash, which took almost 4 weeks of 4 people, than contribute to opensource during working hours and fix the bug for everyone.
- brookhaven_dude 8y ago
  How is C++ doing so great then?
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Thanks to the money Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red-Hat, Intel, Cray, SGI, ARM, HP, Sony, Nintendo, AMD, NVidia, TI,CodePlay... put into ISO work, developer conferences, gcc/clang and their own compilers.
pron 8y ago
Not before someone else is willing to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to sponsor Java. OpenJDK is Big Open Source. The majority of the hundreds of developers building it[1] do it as their day job, and the vast majority of those are employed by Oracle (and others by Red Hat, IBM, Intel and others). Oracle has sponsored OpenJDK for the last 8-9 years, and has now completed open sourcing all of the previously closed bits of the JDK, some dating back to Sun, and some to BEA's JRockit (JFR, now part of OpenJDK 11), not to mention all the new work on the language and JVM including new GCs like ZGC and the new compiler, Graal (I just hope you don't feel too exploited by all this). Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Apple and many, many others (some of them have even forked OpenJDK internally) have not contributed significantly, despite depending so heavily on OpenJDK. So, like it or not, this is the reality of open source. A lot of companies are happy to use it freely but less happy to contribute the significant resources necessary to build it. (I work at Oracle on OpenJDK, but I speak only on behalf of myself) [1]: http://openjdk.java.net/census http://openjdk.java.net/census
krzyk 8y ago
Why do you need to fork OpenJDK? You can just contribute there. I don't see why the uproar about Oracle branded OpenJDK. We can use normal OpenJDK which is almost the same.
grigjd3 8y ago
Hard to ditch Java if you run hdfs and anything built on top of that.
adrianmonk 8y ago
There is a big trade-off to consider here. Previously, Oracle supplied the engineering resources to develop new features and to maintain old releases. Now, Oracle provides the first but not the second. The community can step in and do the second. If it is forked, then the community needs to step in and do both. So getting free of Oracle has a cost, the cost of losing engineering resources for new features. Whether it's worth it would depend on how much value you place on those two things. Clearly Oracle is trying to steer people toward revenue-generating things. I don't see a problem with that in and of itself, especially if the community can provide a free alternative. It seems like this could push things either direction. On the one hand, many companies may just pay Oracle for support and that may become a common (and expected) practice. So that would shift some control toward Oracle. On the other hand, Oracle is stimulating the community to get involved in maintenance, and that may build some momentum for community contributions, causing the community a larger role in Java development, which would shift some control away from Oracle.

by mabbo 8y ago

oblio 8y ago

They own the trademark, they own the TCK and Java itself is a huge amount of tech, not something easy to fork. Plus it would be really hard to get adoption for the fork. The Java brand is huge and many of its users are late adopters or even laggards.

kjeetgill 8y ago
The TCK was recently open sourced!
- oblio 8y ago
  Oh, interesting. Didn't know that.
- kodablah 8y ago
  Link? Surely we're talking about the regular TCK to confirm my Java impl is compliant and not EE.
  - alanfranzoni 8y ago
    https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jakartaee-tck/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jakartaee-tck/blob/master/RE...
    - kodablah 8y ago
      That's EE. Not the TCK that people have complained about their subjective licensing of (e.g. Apache Harmony). When they really open the TCK, that would be nice. In the meantime, this is just for EE stuff of which licensing matters little these days.

kjeetgill 8y ago

I get all the hate for Oracle the company, but they've taken the time to systematically open source every closed source thing they've had: JFR, ZGC, GraalVM (partially), and finally the crown jewel the TCK. They've even been involved in getting the open community up and running. I sincerely can't imagine what more you could want from a corporate steward.

Ygg2 8y ago
> I sincerely can't imagine what more you could want from a corporate steward. To generally not try to pull the rug from under you by changing licenses?
- jerven 8y ago
  This was not pulling the rug from under you. This was them clearly stating they where going to pull the rug, you ignoring all their shouts, signs and warnings and then blundering. I think the onus is on us for not reading and listening.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Meanwhile .NET Core is MIT Licensed and the language spec for C# is still standardized and open to re-implement (hence something like Vala is possible). If you didn't want to drink Microsoft's koolaid it's free as in free beer and as in freedom, can't say the same about Oracles.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      Can you explain how Vala builds on C#?
      - giancarlostoro 8y ago
        It's mostly inspired by the syntax of C# but the spec of C# is standardized so I could see them or someone else going further with it. The real value in C# is the underlying stack aka the .NET Framework that gives you all the tools and toys to get things done.

Pyxl101 8y ago

The latest versions of Java will continue to be free. All you need to do to "pay" for that is remain up to date. Only maintenance on older versions of Java will be subscription based. Why is Oracle obliged to provide long-term binary support and updates for old free software? If you want long-term support for old Java versions, then I think it's reasonable to say: pay for a subscription (or don't complain). RedHad uses a similar business model. Or keep using the latest versions which will continue to be free, and stay up to date. It seems like a reasonable proposition to me. I don't see what Oracle has done wrong here.

danieldk 8y ago
The latest versions of Java will continue to be free. All you need to do to "pay" for that is remain up to date. Only maintenance on older versions of Java will be subscription based. Only free for non-production use. This was on HN yesterday: https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-11-trap.html https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-...
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  I believe you're mistaken. The article is saying that there are two versions of Java, and one has the license that you mentioned while the other is free and open source. From that article: https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-11-trap.html https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/do-not-fall-into-oracles-java-... > As well as their commercial JDK, Oracle produce an OpenJDK build. It is $free, zero-cost and GPL licensed (with Classpath exception so safe for commercial use). Download $free Java here: https://jdk.java.net/11/ https://jdk.java.net/11/ jdk.java.net/11 in turn says: > This page provides production-ready open-source builds of the Java Development Kit, version 11, an implementation of the Java SE 11 Platform under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception.
  - smarx007 8y ago
    Exactly! https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk11-downloads-5066655.html https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk... clearly says in a RED box that "With JDK 11 Oracle has updated the license terms on which we offer the Oracle JDK. The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from the licenses under which previous versions of the JDK were offered. Please review the new terms carefully before downloading and using this product. Oracle also offers this software under the GPL License on jdk.java.net/11"

MaxBarraclough 8y ago

> At what point do we finally draw the line on Oracle and say enough is enough, we're forking? But we already have OpenJDK. What would be gained by completely cutting ties with Oracle?

skgoa 8y ago

> Oracle clearly seem interested only in trying to exploit Java developer and users. Oracle are just not giving users of obsolete, deprecated versions of Java free patches anymore. They want everyone to keep up to date with the current version. The likes of Apple, Microsoft and Google just force push updates to achieve the same goal, but Oracle doesn't have that kind of control. Yet even though Oracle don't want to support old versions anymore, they still offer support contracts for those organizations that truly need it. Which is a completely normal thing in the tech industry. What part of that is exploitation?

Nursie 8y ago
> Oracle are just not giving users ... free patches anymore IIRC they are also making commercial (non-development) use of Oracle JVMs 11+ something that they will charge for. I don't think this was true of earlier versions.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  It was, many Oracle JDK features were only freely available for development, like the Flight Control, for example.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    > many Oracle JDK features were only freely available for development, Sure, but you could use the Oracle-branded JVM in production, AFAICT, for free before.
    - krzyk 8y ago
      But the difference between Oracle branded and OpenJDK is almost non-existent anymore. Do you use Oracle specific features that are not in OpenJDK?
      - Nursie 8y ago
        No, and we'll be fine moving to an OpenJDK build when we move to Java 11 (from 8) in a month or so. Please don't mistake my comments for complaints - I'm just noting that things have changed in the licensing terms for Oracle-branded JVMs. There is an easy and simple way forward, to use OpenJDK, it's important to note the change and act accordingly. That's all.

pjmlp 8y ago

When you get the money to pay the Oracle engineers working on JVM and Graal. Also apparently many have a short memory regarding Sun and IBM's Java business pratices and hating Oracle is fun.

tajen 8y ago
But not acting could be worse, it could ruin the whole sector of Java, Scala and the JVM, be it discredit or economic irrelevance.

afroboy 8y ago

And who is going to pay the great minds behind JVM? you are missing the point that there is great engineers working on Java that need high pay and apparently only Oracle that can do that. see GraalVM as an example of how Java become more good under Oracle yes Oracle is evil but for god sake they are the best thing happened to java (the language and the JVM).

akerro 8y ago

>Why are we still stuck to them? Because even literally the most used Java library - JUnit is struggling financially, because everyone wants to use great technologies for free and donations and open-source contributions are never considered. I worked in huge financial institutions once, they heavily relay on some ant plugin. The plugin had a bug, probably like a day of fixing for me. The company decided to stop using the plugin, rewrite the whole configuration in bash, which took almost 4 weeks of 4 people, than contribute to opensource during working hours and fix the bug for everyone.

brookhaven_dude 8y ago
How is C++ doing so great then?
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Thanks to the money Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red-Hat, Intel, Cray, SGI, ARM, HP, Sony, Nintendo, AMD, NVidia, TI,CodePlay... put into ISO work, developer conferences, gcc/clang and their own compilers.

pron 8y ago

Not before someone else is willing to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to sponsor Java. OpenJDK is Big Open Source. The majority of the hundreds of developers building it[1] do it as their day job, and the vast majority of those are employed by Oracle (and others by Red Hat, IBM, Intel and others). Oracle has sponsored OpenJDK for the last 8-9 years, and has now completed open sourcing all of the previously closed bits of the JDK, some dating back to Sun, and some to BEA's JRockit (JFR, now part of OpenJDK 11), not to mention all the new work on the language and JVM including new GCs like ZGC and the new compiler, Graal (I just hope you don't feel too exploited by all this). Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Apple and many, many others (some of them have even forked OpenJDK internally) have not contributed significantly, despite depending so heavily on OpenJDK. So, like it or not, this is the reality of open source. A lot of companies are happy to use it freely but less happy to contribute the significant resources necessary to build it. (I work at Oracle on OpenJDK, but I speak only on behalf of myself) [1]: http://openjdk.java.net/census http://openjdk.java.net/census

krzyk 8y ago

Why do you need to fork OpenJDK? You can just contribute there. I don't see why the uproar about Oracle branded OpenJDK. We can use normal OpenJDK which is almost the same.

grigjd3 8y ago

Hard to ditch Java if you run hdfs and anything built on top of that.

adrianmonk 8y ago

There is a big trade-off to consider here. Previously, Oracle supplied the engineering resources to develop new features and to maintain old releases. Now, Oracle provides the first but not the second. The community can step in and do the second. If it is forked, then the community needs to step in and do both. So getting free of Oracle has a cost, the cost of losing engineering resources for new features. Whether it's worth it would depend on how much value you place on those two things. Clearly Oracle is trying to steer people toward revenue-generating things. I don't see a problem with that in and of itself, especially if the community can provide a free alternative. It seems like this could push things either direction. On the one hand, many companies may just pay Oracle for support and that may become a common (and expected) practice. So that would shift some control toward Oracle. On the other hand, Oracle is stimulating the community to get involved in maintenance, and that may build some momentum for community contributions, causing the community a larger role in Java development, which would shift some control away from Oracle.