See
Supreme Court sides with Google in long-running copyright dispute over the coding in its Android operating system. The people who care already understand the issues, so I won't explain here since the situation was clearly laid out in the thread's opening posts.
I had two concerns. One was that the ability to restrict use of copyrighted APIs would have a chilling effect on the software industry, and the Supreme Court has just alleviated this concern.
The other concern was that Oracle was using their ownership of the Java standard as leverage to funnel more and more users of free versions to their pay versions, while at the same time falsely posing as a good software citizen by expressing their support for free Java. This is an opportune moment to take stock and see where Oracle's monetizing of Java stands right now.
The situation was accurately captured a couple years ago in
Oracle and the New Java Subscription Frontier | Browsium – Browser Management for Enterprise:
quote:
For a few years now, Oracle has been aggressively monetizing Java, mainly with success. This monetization has been done primarily by taking features that were previously available for free and then hiding them behind an enterprise license, known as a Java SE Subscription, in future releases.
Is Oracle still doing this? It's difficult to tell for sure. If you go to Oracle's Java website (
https://java.com) you'll find the free version is Java SE version 8. It's been around forever (commercial Java is up to version 15), and this statement just above the download button doesn't give one the warm and fuzzies:
quote:
Important Oracle Java License Update
The Oracle Java License has changed for releases starting April 16, 2019.
The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from prior Oracle Java licenses. The new license permits certain uses, such as personal use and development use, at no cost -- but other uses authorized under prior Oracle Java licenses may no longer be available. Please review the terms carefully before downloading and using this product. An FAQ is available here.
Commercial license and support is available with a low cost Java SE Subscription.
Oracle also provides the latest OpenJDK release under the open source GPL License at jdk.java.net.
My guess is that this means that Java is not free for anything but the most trivial uses, and I find Oracle's constant use of the word "free" to be disingenuous. This website uses PHP and MySQL, and both are free. If I were to start selling this site's software I would not be charged for using PHP and MySQL. But if I were to code some modules in Oracle's Java then they would not be free and I would have to pay for my use of Java. Java is definitely not free in the same way that PHP and MySQL are free and Oracle should stop using the term free. What Oracle really does is make personal and evaluation copies available.
Then there's the open
jdk.java.net. Their FAQ hasn't been updated in years - the most recent year it mentions is 2012, and only as part of a future roadmap, but you can get the JDK for versions as recent as Java SE version 16. How good is it? I have no idea. When I searched for comparisons between Oracle's Java and OpenJDK the articles compared Java 8, which is nearly a decade old now.
I think the only way I could get a true feel for how well OpenJDK would work for me is to try it and see if I run into things I can only do in an Oracle version. I read a couple articles saying that OpenJDK can do pretty much everything that Oracle JDK can do, and I wanted to believe them because they said deprecating things about Oracle's commitment to open software, but when I got to the end I found they were both written by companies trying to monetize Java, so I didn't feel I could trust what they said.
Bottom line: I don't think I know enough to make a conclusive case, but I still don't trust Oracle.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : Grammar again.
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
Edited by Percy, : Fix title.
Edited by Percy, : Typo.
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