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Afaik, Oracle maintains their own distribution of the OpenJDK[1] and it requires no login. [1] https://openjdk.java.net/ https://openjdk.java.net/

taftster 7y ago
Yes, but they only offer the short-term support versions there. e.g. Java 12. The long-term support versions (Java 8 & Java 11) are only offered by Oracle through a paid subscription. It's complicated, but to try and summarize: - Oracle will lead the development of the short-term supported OpenJDK versions and will make the compiled distributions available for free. This is currently Java 12. - Oracle will also develop and maintain proprietary long term support versions for their paid subscriber base. This is currently Java 8 and Java 11. - Oracle will release source-code patches for Java 8 & Java 11 as they make them for the LTS releases. - Other companies/organizations will maintain their own LTS release versions and will apply the source patches to keep their versions up to date. AdoptJDK, Redhat/IBM, Ubuntu, and Amazon all maintain their own LTS versions (Java 8 & 11). They take the patches offered by Oracle and maintain their own distributed binaries based on them. These companies (along with other contributors) also make their patches available to Oracle. Think of Java now like you think of the Linux kernel. The kernel itself receives patches from all sorts of contributors. Various Linux vendors compile and provide the Linux kernel as part of their distribution. You don't go to kernel.org to get the compiled binary for your Linux system; you go to a Linux vendor for that. Likewise, you need to go to a Java vendor to get a compiled convenience binary for your platform. AdoptOpenJDK offers a pretty friendly distribution for all the various platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux).
- t0astbread 7y ago
  Ohh I see. I oughta know this stuff since I do use JVM languages from time to time but I didn't. Thank you!
makomk 7y ago
It also has no Windows installer - it's a bare zip archive. In order for all the existing software that expects Java installed to find it you need to set several environmental variables and registry keys. AdoptOpenJDK has an installer that can do all that for you, making it pretty much a drop-in replacement for the old JDK and JRE downloads. There's almost no way for anyone who wants to run older software that needs Java to discover AdoptOpenJDK though.

taftster 7y ago

Yes, but they only offer the short-term support versions there. e.g. Java 12. The long-term support versions (Java 8 & Java 11) are only offered by Oracle through a paid subscription. It's complicated, but to try and summarize: - Oracle will lead the development of the short-term supported OpenJDK versions and will make the compiled distributions available for free. This is currently Java 12. - Oracle will also develop and maintain proprietary long term support versions for their paid subscriber base. This is currently Java 8 and Java 11. - Oracle will release source-code patches for Java 8 & Java 11 as they make them for the LTS releases. - Other companies/organizations will maintain their own LTS release versions and will apply the source patches to keep their versions up to date. AdoptJDK, Redhat/IBM, Ubuntu, and Amazon all maintain their own LTS versions (Java 8 & 11). They take the patches offered by Oracle and maintain their own distributed binaries based on them. These companies (along with other contributors) also make their patches available to Oracle. Think of Java now like you think of the Linux kernel. The kernel itself receives patches from all sorts of contributors. Various Linux vendors compile and provide the Linux kernel as part of their distribution. You don't go to kernel.org to get the compiled binary for your Linux system; you go to a Linux vendor for that. Likewise, you need to go to a Java vendor to get a compiled convenience binary for your platform. AdoptOpenJDK offers a pretty friendly distribution for all the various platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux).

t0astbread 7y ago
Ohh I see. I oughta know this stuff since I do use JVM languages from time to time but I didn't. Thank you!

makomk 7y ago

It also has no Windows installer - it's a bare zip archive. In order for all the existing software that expects Java installed to find it you need to set several environmental variables and registry keys. AdoptOpenJDK has an installer that can do all that for you, making it pretty much a drop-in replacement for the old JDK and JRE downloads. There's almost no way for anyone who wants to run older software that needs Java to discover AdoptOpenJDK though.