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The changes to the process were absolutely necessary for Java to keep growing and remain competitive, but the ecosystem will take a few years to adapt (and I do
by pron 7y ago
The changes to the process were absolutely necessary for Java to keep growing and remain competitive, but the ecosystem will take a few years to adapt (and I don't think the warning is cryptic).
As to an installer -- the JDK does not require any installation (just point JAVA_HOME at it). In addition, the JDK is for developers only. The days of the "system desktop JRE" are over, and it is against the recommended practice to have the JDK on non-developer machines. Instead, the recommended practice is to have the developer create a small custom runtime with jlink and bundle it with their application (or perhaps a runtime shared for all of the developer's applications, in case the users are all in the same company).
- kevin_b_er 7y agoYes, the current practice is such because Oracle wants to tax all creators of java applications. Java is not run anywhere anymore. The JDK is for "developers only" because it is open and java is not. Oracle cannot tax and legally threaten an open system the same way it can one where you need a license to actually run java.
- pron 7y agoI don't know what you're talking about. Oracle has recently, for the first time ever, open sourced the entire JDK. It is 100% open source. No one is threatened, and the license is the same one as that used by Linux. Just to be clear: Java is a standard; OpenJDK is the name of Oracle's implementation of the Java standard. That the JDK is for developers who then build their own custom runtimes using the JDK tools is a result of shifts in software distribution -- on the desktop, the shift to app stores, and on the server, the shift to containers -- that made the "desktop JRE" irrelevant (and unpopular). But if you prefer that old model, the JDK contains all you need to create such a runtime easily.