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This is probably a really dumb question, but what "support" do corporations running Java need? What are they getting for these massive fees they're paying? Fol

This is probably a really dumb question, but what "support" do corporations running Java need? What are they getting for these massive fees they're paying? Follow up question, what sources are the open runtimes based on? Is it similar to CentOS where the source code is compiled and the artifacts are distributed? Or is it more like Amazon, Microsoft and others have to reimplement the same features.

StrangeDoctor 2y ago
They need support in not attracting the inquiry of oracle auditors. They’re basically all based on openjdk source with different VMs and GC tech added in or supported to different levels.
- vips7L 2y ago
  In reality, they need support in order to point liability towards Oracle when something goes wrong. Enterprises like having the ability to shift blame. "Yes we know its down, we have a support ticket in with Oracle."
t0mas88 2y ago
The support most organisations need is security updates for older versions. The free OpenJDK forks provide longer term security updates for their releases. Oracle uses a more tricky setup. Every LTS release and its updates, but only until 1 year after the next LTS release, is covered by their "no-fee license". After that 1 year the updates are under a different license that only allows personal/development use or use on Oracle cloud. So any commercial user needs to buy a license from Oracle for these versions.
playingalong 2y ago
Likely it's just meeting the compliance requirement that all pieces of software are to be supported. Whatever that means.
thih9 2y ago
> but what "support" do corporations running Java need? I’m guessing it all comes scale and bloat. A hack from 5 years ago to store critical metadata in some schemaless blobs needs to be migrated from an unsupported system to a newer one. The new system uses an updated Java version, and it turns out this gets inexplicably slow when parsing parts of the metadata blobs. Also, maybe JNI is involved, or nobody knows how to build the project, etc. If this was a startup then two devs would pull an all nighter and come up with an even worse hack. Or would offload that to a random cloud platform, burning vc money. Or would not use Java in the first place. Or the startup would not survive / pivot. In a large corporation I guess there’s support.
worewood 2y ago
From my experience in corporate, "support" basically means consultation, because the corporation only employs "developers" who know zero things about garbage collection, or how threading works, or how to read reference documentation, and need a programmer that actually knows what they're doing when things go awry. I've lost count of how many times we had a problem, I went and read the proper documentation and said what had to be done, only to be ignored because upper mgmt didn't like the solution, so they called "support" only to be told the exact same thing.

StrangeDoctor 2y ago

They need support in not attracting the inquiry of oracle auditors. They’re basically all based on openjdk source with different VMs and GC tech added in or supported to different levels.

vips7L 2y ago
In reality, they need support in order to point liability towards Oracle when something goes wrong. Enterprises like having the ability to shift blame. "Yes we know its down, we have a support ticket in with Oracle."

t0mas88 2y ago

The support most organisations need is security updates for older versions. The free OpenJDK forks provide longer term security updates for their releases. Oracle uses a more tricky setup. Every LTS release and its updates, but only until 1 year after the next LTS release, is covered by their "no-fee license". After that 1 year the updates are under a different license that only allows personal/development use or use on Oracle cloud. So any commercial user needs to buy a license from Oracle for these versions.

playingalong 2y ago

Likely it's just meeting the compliance requirement that all pieces of software are to be supported. Whatever that means.

thih9 2y ago

> but what "support" do corporations running Java need? I’m guessing it all comes scale and bloat. A hack from 5 years ago to store critical metadata in some schemaless blobs needs to be migrated from an unsupported system to a newer one. The new system uses an updated Java version, and it turns out this gets inexplicably slow when parsing parts of the metadata blobs. Also, maybe JNI is involved, or nobody knows how to build the project, etc. If this was a startup then two devs would pull an all nighter and come up with an even worse hack. Or would offload that to a random cloud platform, burning vc money. Or would not use Java in the first place. Or the startup would not survive / pivot. In a large corporation I guess there’s support.

worewood 2y ago

From my experience in corporate, "support" basically means consultation, because the corporation only employs "developers" who know zero things about garbage collection, or how threading works, or how to read reference documentation, and need a programmer that actually knows what they're doing when things go awry. I've lost count of how many times we had a problem, I went and read the proper documentation and said what had to be done, only to be ignored because upper mgmt didn't like the solution, so they called "support" only to be told the exact same thing.