5 ms·

Come on, just stop this FUD already. Oracle is responsible for 95+% of every single commit going to OpenJDK, which has the exact same license and situation as

by kaba0 3y ago

Come on, just stop this FUD already. Oracle is responsible for 95+% of every single commit going to OpenJDK, which has the exact same license and situation as the goddamn linux kernel, GPL2. Do you also sweat a lot about accidentally installing red hat linux? If not, you have zero reason to worry. How is amazon compiling and repackaging the exact same thing somehow different?

gabereiser 3y ago
People have been burned too many times by Oracle “true-ups”. And no, it’s not FUD. Their license explicitly states that JEE/SE (not JRE) is covered by their commercial license, not their open source license. This year, in 2023, Oracle introduced the enterprise-wide metric license model. So if you use Java for anything in your organization, they charge you based on your organization size. (All or nothing model).
- n2d4 3y ago
  That licensing would be the Oracle JDK. Not OpenJDK like parent was talking about, which is wholly open-source (supporting SE but not EE) and also maintained by Oracle but without LTS. See my other comment about Adoptium vs. OpenJDK vs. Oracle JDK: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571143
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    Yes, Oracle JDK, the default one you are directed to at oracle.com. Java.net provides OpenJDK.
- kaba0 3y ago
  There is no such thing as a JRE anymore. And even the commercial OracleJDK is free to use (though not libre).
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    Some people would beg to differ. There are some organizations that have Java desktop apps, some that have kiosks and appliances that run JRE-like environments. There are some that are still on Java 8.
    - cbm-vic-20 3y ago
      This is what jlink is for.
n2d4 3y ago
Oracle's OpenJDK builds are only updated for six months after each release, while Adoptium receives long-term support (like the commercial Oracle JDK).
- kaba0 3y ago
  Even the commercial OracleJDK is free to use, as long as you stay on the latest LTS.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- pron 3y ago
  No one offers free long-term support. The free "long-term support" releases merely backport some fixes from the mainline to the old release, so only the intersection between the old version and the newest one is maintained in free distributions. A real LTS service includes original bug fixes. If you want the entire JDK to be maintained you have to either use the current version (completely free) or pay someone for a proper LTS service. The LTS service that Oracle offers is how OpenJDK is funded.
  - nobleach 3y ago
    Can't upvote this response enough! Thank you Ron. You corrected my understanding on this a few years ago in a Reddit thread on /r/java. I've tried to convey this response ever since. You are NOT getting an LTS release from anyone outside of Oracle. Others will provide backports and that might be "good enough". If you're not paying for an LTS, you may as well update to each new release (as long as nothing else breaks).
    - pron 3y ago
      To be fair, a few other companies also have excellent OpenJDK developers (although not as many as Oracle) and they also offer LTS services that cover the entire JDK, but no one offers one for free.
palata 3y ago
I get what you mean, but given answers here (and other places in this thread) it seems like the licensing is not clear at all. At least it's not clear to me, I'm still on "Oracle is evil, go as far as you possibly can from them". I would genuinely be happy to be able to confidently say that "this particular project of Oracle is safe for me to use", though.
- kaba0 3y ago
  It’s not clear for people that put their hands over their ears and go LA-LA-LA-LA. Hell, in many places bullshit like that is not even enforceable. There was a good comment on one similar threads: oracle is thought as this litigious monster because they provide DRM-free, no phoning home solutions to companies. This is very important for these customers, as you just simply can’t shut down a country’s hospital system because Google or whatever managed to falsely flag it as some malware and now you try to grab onto any form of human contact from their support, without success. But every sufficiently big company is only after money, so to make some form of profit they do have to actually enforce their contracts somehow, here comes the inspection - which sure suck, but there is no other way around it given the previous limitation. And sure, some higher management can easily have fked up and used some feature that was not part of their plan, and they desperately want to cover up their mishandling, and Oracle “kindly” offers them the option to forget about the fee for that plus option, if you subscribe to this other service of ours for X years, we are good; and higher management couldn’t be happier.
  - palata 3y ago
    That kind of clarification is very useful (at least to me). I honestly don't really know why Oracle "are the bad guys". I just heard it so much that I accepted it.
pseudosavant 3y ago
There is cognitive overhead in even having to consider how Oracle could be licensing anything you download from them. Their licensing has a long history of being complex, expensive, and enforced. Choosing to get software from a less complicated (licensing wise) provider is a valid choice. The licensing risk of using open source software, that is mostly being written by Oracle, from Amazon is less. Amazon's open source reputation is that they'll screw over maintainers with their rebranded forks, but not go after users of open source.
frant-hartm 3y ago
According to https://inside.java/2023/09/19/the-arrival-of-java-21/ https://inside.java/2023/09/19/the-arrival-of-java-21/ Oracle provides roughly 3/4 of the commits and fixed issues. It's a majority, but there are other significant players (always surprised to see SAP higher then Google and Amazon).

by kaba0 3y ago

gabereiser 3y ago

People have been burned too many times by Oracle “true-ups”. And no, it’s not FUD. Their license explicitly states that JEE/SE (not JRE) is covered by their commercial license, not their open source license. This year, in 2023, Oracle introduced the enterprise-wide metric license model. So if you use Java for anything in your organization, they charge you based on your organization size. (All or nothing model).

n2d4 3y ago
That licensing would be the Oracle JDK. Not OpenJDK like parent was talking about, which is wholly open-source (supporting SE but not EE) and also maintained by Oracle but without LTS. See my other comment about Adoptium vs. OpenJDK vs. Oracle JDK: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571143
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Yes, Oracle JDK, the default one you are directed to at oracle.com. Java.net provides OpenJDK.
kaba0 3y ago
There is no such thing as a JRE anymore. And even the commercial OracleJDK is free to use (though not libre).
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Some people would beg to differ. There are some organizations that have Java desktop apps, some that have kiosks and appliances that run JRE-like environments. There are some that are still on Java 8.
  - cbm-vic-20 3y ago
    This is what jlink is for.

n2d4 3y ago

Oracle's OpenJDK builds are only updated for six months after each release, while Adoptium receives long-term support (like the commercial Oracle JDK).

kaba0 3y ago
Even the commercial OracleJDK is free to use, as long as you stay on the latest LTS.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pron 3y ago
No one offers free long-term support. The free "long-term support" releases merely backport some fixes from the mainline to the old release, so only the intersection between the old version and the newest one is maintained in free distributions. A real LTS service includes original bug fixes. If you want the entire JDK to be maintained you have to either use the current version (completely free) or pay someone for a proper LTS service. The LTS service that Oracle offers is how OpenJDK is funded.
- nobleach 3y ago
  Can't upvote this response enough! Thank you Ron. You corrected my understanding on this a few years ago in a Reddit thread on /r/java. I've tried to convey this response ever since. You are NOT getting an LTS release from anyone outside of Oracle. Others will provide backports and that might be "good enough". If you're not paying for an LTS, you may as well update to each new release (as long as nothing else breaks).
  - pron 3y ago
    To be fair, a few other companies also have excellent OpenJDK developers (although not as many as Oracle) and they also offer LTS services that cover the entire JDK, but no one offers one for free.

palata 3y ago

I get what you mean, but given answers here (and other places in this thread) it seems like the licensing is not clear at all. At least it's not clear to me, I'm still on "Oracle is evil, go as far as you possibly can from them". I would genuinely be happy to be able to confidently say that "this particular project of Oracle is safe for me to use", though.

kaba0 3y ago
It’s not clear for people that put their hands over their ears and go LA-LA-LA-LA. Hell, in many places bullshit like that is not even enforceable. There was a good comment on one similar threads: oracle is thought as this litigious monster because they provide DRM-free, no phoning home solutions to companies. This is very important for these customers, as you just simply can’t shut down a country’s hospital system because Google or whatever managed to falsely flag it as some malware and now you try to grab onto any form of human contact from their support, without success. But every sufficiently big company is only after money, so to make some form of profit they do have to actually enforce their contracts somehow, here comes the inspection - which sure suck, but there is no other way around it given the previous limitation. And sure, some higher management can easily have fked up and used some feature that was not part of their plan, and they desperately want to cover up their mishandling, and Oracle “kindly” offers them the option to forget about the fee for that plus option, if you subscribe to this other service of ours for X years, we are good; and higher management couldn’t be happier.
- palata 3y ago
  That kind of clarification is very useful (at least to me). I honestly don't really know why Oracle "are the bad guys". I just heard it so much that I accepted it.

pseudosavant 3y ago

There is cognitive overhead in even having to consider how Oracle could be licensing anything you download from them. Their licensing has a long history of being complex, expensive, and enforced. Choosing to get software from a less complicated (licensing wise) provider is a valid choice. The licensing risk of using open source software, that is mostly being written by Oracle, from Amazon is less. Amazon's open source reputation is that they'll screw over maintainers with their rebranded forks, but not go after users of open source.

frant-hartm 3y ago

According to https://inside.java/2023/09/19/the-arrival-of-java-21/ https://inside.java/2023/09/19/the-arrival-of-java-21/ Oracle provides roughly 3/4 of the commits and fixed issues. It's a majority, but there are other significant players (always surprised to see SAP higher then Google and Amazon).