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> Oracle seems to have stepped away from this and only offers limited time support for their own JDKs which also cost money. This is inaccurate (I work at Orac

by pron 7y ago

> Oracle seems to have stepped away from this and only offers limited time support for their own JDKs which also cost money. This is inaccurate (I work at Oracle on OpenJDK). Oracle provides the JDK under two different licenses: the commercial OTN, for support subscribers, and the free OpenJDK license (here: http://jdk.java.net/ http://jdk.java.net/). Moreover, Oracle's OpenJDK builds are the official ones in the sense that bugs reported against OpenJDK must be reported against those (as those are the builds that the developers use). For 8u and 11u, the similarly official builds are these ones by Red Hat: https://adoptopenjdk.net/upstream https://adoptopenjdk.net/upstream The thing about support is misleading becuase Java no longer has major releases (9 was the last one ever), and now has two upgrade paths: a gradual one: 9->10->11->12->... and a non-gradual one: 11->11.0.1->11.0.2.->...11.0.x->17 (neither of these is the same as the old model). The difference between upgrading from 11.0.2 to 11.0.3 and 11.0.2 and 12 can be very small (12 is not a major version), the gradual path is the recommended one as it will be the cheapest overall, and OpenJDK development is built around the gradual path. As far as OpenJDK builds go, Oracle supports only one of those paths for free (the recommended gradual one), while the other is for subscribers only. Note that in the recommended upgrade path, you will be supported by Oracle builds forever at no cost, and will never have to do another major upgrade again. So all the bug fixes and security patches for 11.0.2 are provided by Oracle, completely for free, in 12, which is not a major release. As to the paid support path, this is how Oracle funds OpenJDK development. Oracle is the company that contributes >90% of the resources to OpenJDK (Here are the recent contribution stats for 11 and 12: [1][2]. Note that the stats do not consider contribution size.) So it's important to remember that all OpenJDK JDKs are developed primarily by Oracle, and it is Oracle's support subscription that funds OpenJDK development. And if, for example, you find a bug in Amazon Coretto, they will reproduce it on the Oracle (or Red Hat, depending on version) builds and submit it to the OpenJDK project for Oracle (or sometimes Red Hat) developers to fix. [1]: https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/building-jdk-11-together https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/building-jdk-11... [2]: https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/the-arrival-of-java-12 https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/the-arrival-of-...

jillesvangurp 7y ago
That's the Oracle pitch. The practical implication is that you don't get your openjdk builds from them if you want to avoid the audits, licensing, etc. Paid support is also offered by others so they don't do this exclusively. This has been true since they acquired Sun. I find this odd because that was arguably the most valuable thing they acquired from them. BTW, v9 was a non LTS release, just like 10. v8 was the last traditional release. V11 is a relatively short lived LTS release. Hence Amazon and others stepping up to fill the void left by Oracle no longer offering long term support for free.
- pron 7y ago
  > That's the Oracle pitch. Well, like the vast majority of OpenJDK developers, I work at Oracle :) (but I speak only for myself) > The practical implication is that you don't get your openjdk builds from them if you want to avoid the audits, licensing, etc. The OpenJDK builds from Oracle (http://jdk.java.net/ http://jdk.java.net/) -- the "official" OpenJDK builds for the current JDK version -- are under the same license as any other OpenJDK distribution, and the download page for Oracle customers clearly says download our OpenJDK builds if you're not a support customer. > the void left by Oracle no longer offering long term support for free. The "no longer" here is misleading. There are two completely new upgrade models now. Oracle offers one of them (the recommended gradual path) completely free, and the other (the non-gradual path) as a subscription. Neither of those is the same as before. For example, JDK 11 is a feature release marked LTS. It is about the same size as 7u4 or 8u20. Oracle never offered LTS for 8u20 or 7u4; it was always only 6 months. In the past we had major releases that were supported with "limited update" releases and patch releases. Those major releases no longer exist, so it doesn't make sense to say that Oracle no longer offers something which is now irrelevant. On the other hand, the LTS releases now include only patches, whereas the feature releases are like "limited update +". So Oracle no longer offers free LTS (in the form of limited update releases and patches) for major releases, and no one else does, either, because major releases no longer exist.

by pron 7y ago

jillesvangurp 7y ago

That's the Oracle pitch. The practical implication is that you don't get your openjdk builds from them if you want to avoid the audits, licensing, etc. Paid support is also offered by others so they don't do this exclusively. This has been true since they acquired Sun. I find this odd because that was arguably the most valuable thing they acquired from them. BTW, v9 was a non LTS release, just like 10. v8 was the last traditional release. V11 is a relatively short lived LTS release. Hence Amazon and others stepping up to fill the void left by Oracle no longer offering long term support for free.

pron 7y ago
> That's the Oracle pitch. Well, like the vast majority of OpenJDK developers, I work at Oracle :) (but I speak only for myself) > The practical implication is that you don't get your openjdk builds from them if you want to avoid the audits, licensing, etc. The OpenJDK builds from Oracle (http://jdk.java.net/ http://jdk.java.net/) -- the "official" OpenJDK builds for the current JDK version -- are under the same license as any other OpenJDK distribution, and the download page for Oracle customers clearly says download our OpenJDK builds if you're not a support customer. > the void left by Oracle no longer offering long term support for free. The "no longer" here is misleading. There are two completely new upgrade models now. Oracle offers one of them (the recommended gradual path) completely free, and the other (the non-gradual path) as a subscription. Neither of those is the same as before. For example, JDK 11 is a feature release marked LTS. It is about the same size as 7u4 or 8u20. Oracle never offered LTS for 8u20 or 7u4; it was always only 6 months. In the past we had major releases that were supported with "limited update" releases and patch releases. Those major releases no longer exist, so it doesn't make sense to say that Oracle no longer offers something which is now irrelevant. On the other hand, the LTS releases now include only patches, whereas the feature releases are like "limited update +". So Oracle no longer offers free LTS (in the form of limited update releases and patches) for major releases, and no one else does, either, because major releases no longer exist.