Java is still available at zero-cost • Hacker News Board

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#11

Post by roenxi » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

Up until around 2008, clock speed was increasing rapidly and the bottleneck to systems performance kept changing. Software was being obsoleted in a mater of years. Then things started changing; evidenced perhaps by Windows upgrades suddenly becoming a lot less relevant and Apple starting to steamroll more modular computer builders like Dell.

Mark my words, there will come a day where continuously upgrading software will start to have a clearly higher cost than old, boring and stable. 2018 to me is the first year that a software platform can have had a true decade to stabilise in an environment that isn't constantly shifting and changing at a hardware level.

Maybe trends like in graphics cards will shake things up, but I believe the advantage is going to move to stable, slow upgrading, well supported platforms with large bases of well trained developer. Reducing LTS windows will be a disadvantage for the Java ecosystem.

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#12

Post by unscaled » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #5

mevile wrote: post #2

Java moving to 6 month release cycles is good. OpenJDK is good. RedHat providing long term support is good. All of this is good. Where I'm worried this fails is with dependencies. Also in the context of developing plugins for other Java projects. For example building a plugin for IntelliJ and the different versions of IntelliJ users may have.

Java has legendary backwards compatibility and has had that since the first public release. That’s not going anywhere.

This changed somewhat starting with Java 9. Quite a few libraries broke down due to deprecated classes finally being removed and the version format change.

Java also has a considerable class of libraries and tools that tends to break on every major release: mocking frameworks, dependency injection libraries, annotation processors and everything heavily relying on bytecode generation. I'd say most Java projects contain at least one of these, so migrating to a newer Java is not just a matter of installing a new JDK and changing your JAVA_HOME.

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#13

Post by spydum » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

sdinsn wrote: post #8

spydum wrote: post #4

what worries me most is the muscle memory of developers downloading Oracle jdk from oracle. If Oracle keeps is dark patterns, thousands of developers will be using the commercial tool and on the hook for license fees.

That is not how it works. You can download the Oracle JDK and use it forever, commercially, for free. You just won't get updates backported to your version unless you pay for long term support.

Find that in writing. Everything I read says jdk 8 is the last free Oracle jdk.

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#14

Post by bradleyjg » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

The TL;DR is that Red Hat and IBM are going to take over from Oracle as primary maintainers of java 8 (in the form of openjdk) after January 2019. That is likely to last through at least 2022.

Going forward Oracle will be primary maintainers of openjdk for each new version of java for six months. Every third version (starting with 11) the hope and expectation is that RH, IBM, et al will take over after those six months are up and continue to support those versions for at least several years.

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#15

Post by didip » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

I am not well-verse in Java world and curious about one thing.

The valuable part of Oracle JDK is the GC. For example G1 is only going to be available on OpenJDK 9. What if there's a new GC being developed, will OpenJDK have the new GC?

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#16

Post by spydum » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

cwyers wrote: post #10

spydum wrote: post #4

what worries me most is the muscle memory of developers downloading Oracle jdk from oracle. If Oracle keeps is dark patterns, thousands of developers will be using the commercial tool and on the hook for license fees.

If you are a professional writing Java code, nine times out of ten someone in your org will be responsible for volume licensing.

exactly my point. Oracle going to come knocking and shaking down enterprises for millions because they still pull jdk from Oracle instead of openjdk

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#17

Post by kevinherron » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

didip wrote: post #15

I am not well-verse in Java world and curious about one thing. The valuable part of Oracle JDK is the GC. For example G1 is only going to be available on OpenJDK 9. What if there's a new GC being developed, will OpenJDK have the new GC?

There is a new GC being developed (ZGC), and it's available as part of OpenJDK under GPL license.

See this thread from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17875944

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#18

Post by pgwhalen » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

didip wrote: post #15

I am not well-verse in Java world and curious about one thing. The valuable part of Oracle JDK is the GC. For example G1 is only going to be available on OpenJDK 9. What if there's a new GC being developed, will OpenJDK have the new GC?

Yes.

http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/333

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#19

Post by rhencke » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #5

mevile wrote: post #2

Java moving to 6 month release cycles is good. OpenJDK is good. RedHat providing long term support is good. All of this is good. Where I'm worried this fails is with dependencies. Also in the context of developing plugins for other Java projects. For example building a plugin for IntelliJ and the different versions of IntelliJ users may have.

Java has legendary backwards compatibility and has had that since the first public release. That’s not going anywhere.

I do wonder if that will be slowly changing under new ownership. Java 9 and 10 had some pretty risky changes, compared to the prior releases. Take a look at the migration guide.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/10/migrate/toc.htm#JSMIG-GUID...

Usually you don't see sentences like 'For every tool and third-party library that you use, you may need to have an updated version that supports at least JDK 9.', nor 'Check the websites for your third-party libraries and your tool vendors for a version of each library or tool that’s designed to work on JDK 9 or 10.' as things to watch for in a Java release.

Re: Java is still available at zero-cost

#20

Post by JustSomeNobody » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

spydum wrote: post #16

cwyers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a professional writing Java code, nine times out of ten someone in your org will be responsible for volume licensing.

exactly my point. Oracle going to come knocking and shaking down enterprises for millions because they still pull jdk from Oracle instead of openjdk

But as cwyers said, there's a person in charge of volume licensing. That person should have a way of auditing everyone's system to determine if they are using properly licensed products.