Author Topic: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.  (Read 4854 times)

Martin Iturbide

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The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« on: November 09, 2018, 05:54:07 pm »
Hi guys

There is currently a drama going on with Java since Oracle is going to start charging for the use of the "runtime" (Java SE) since January of 2019. I'm watching customers here in Ecuador that are counting the Java applications they have developed and calculating how much they have to pay Oracle to use their runtime on their java applications server.

Oracle says that will charge of the Java SE only for commercial and business use. Which I understand is that if you use "FreeMind" (for example) for non commercial use you can keep using Java SE free of charge, but if you use it for work/money you need to page a license to Oracle (Like $40 for the Java SE Advacnced desktop) (Source). And there is also a different way to calculate the cost for  a server running several Java web apps.

In my understanding, this applies to Java SE, and does not apply to OpenJDK (the open source spin off). On the OS/2 community we have the OpenJDK (GNU GPL) ported to OS/2, which means we are not using the Oracle binaries for the Java runtime. Which I understand there will be no problem for us using "Freemind" (or any other Java app) for commercial use, and it would not be any issue (or payment fee) if Bitwise or any other guy wants to port the latest OpenJDK (version 11) to the platform.

I think it is not time to demonize Java as a development language, but it is time to be careful on which runtime do you install to run Java apps. On the case of the OS/2 community we have OpenJDK 1.6 which I think it does not gives issues.

Do you think I'm understanding this right? Any other thoughts.

Regards
« Last Edit: November 09, 2018, 06:22:42 pm by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Joop

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2018, 08:26:10 pm »
There will be never an issue with Oracle simply because they don't have Java for OS/2. Said that, I don't know which law system they use, so there might be a trap door. But even with source they can't hold up because the source wouldn't compile into an OS/2 executable. So I don't think we will get problems. I do see that more and more software used by companies or governments are java based, this rules out to have several executable for every used platform which in turn is more easy to maintain company wise.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2018, 01:44:22 am »
Hi

But I'm still concern if Oracle will keep giving source code to the OpenJDK project. 

My other concern, what if you use OpenJDK to run your business java applications inside a company, and then Oracle shows up requesting money for software patents, just like Microsoft did with Linux. This can also apply for OS/2.

I really don't know where to start on the OpenJDK mailing list to try to find a discussion about it or any answer.
https://mail.openjdk.java.net/mailman/listinfo

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Martin Iturbide
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Joop

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2018, 06:02:03 pm »
I did read a little bit on the Oracle site. The pricing is for older versions of Java which have to be maintained for users who need to stay on some level due to other programs or programs based on an older version of Java. So the pricing is for maintaining version of Java 6, 7 and 8. Java 8 will be end of life at January 2019, after that you can only get updates and security fixes if you pay a price. That's it. Java 11, current version, is free as far as I can read. So it has more to do with maintenance with a low volume of customers. And this is expensive to do, so the pricing.
If you don't want to pay (....) then they advice those users to go to OpenJDK, because that's free but doesn't have all the latest security fixes.

I'm more concerned about the fact that Java 11 is only 64bit as far as I did see at the moment. And we are still on half of that. I don't know if a 64bit source can be compiled for a 32bit OS.
So far my view, but I might be wrong.

Dave Yeo

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2018, 08:23:05 pm »
I'm more concerned about the fact that Java 11 is only 64bit as far as I did see at the moment. And we are still on half of that. I don't know if a 64bit source can be compiled for a 32bit OS.
So far my view, but I might be wrong.

A well written program should compile as 32 bit or 64 bit. Unluckily there may still be assumptions that demand more address space then a 32 bit program has. Garbage collection for example is probably a lot easier to implement with a huge address space and may not scale down.
Unluckily the future is a 64bit world with more and more stuff requiring the large address space and also taking advantage of resources that are only available on 64bit processors. This will eventually put more nails in OS/2's coffin.

Fahrvenugen

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2018, 08:45:39 pm »
The dissapointing part of all of this is how far Java has diverged from its original promise.

Originally it was "write once, run anywhere".  Part of this  implied that your apps would run on all future versions of Java on all future platforms.  The idea that all versions of the Java runtime were (in theory) going to be backwards compatible with previously released versions. 

Unfortunately this got abandoned quickly.  Java apps that require a specific version of the Java runtime, and in some cases I've even seen Java stuff that requires both a specific version of Java on a specific OS.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: The Java drama and the OS/2 Community.
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2018, 02:09:11 am »
Hi

Amazon released an OpenJDK binary distribution called "Amazon Correto" (Version 1.8.0 b192) for Windows, Amazon Linux 2(?), MacOS and Docker.

"Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multiplatform, production-ready distribution of the Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK). Corretto comes with long-term support that will include performance enhancements and security fixes. Amazon runs Corretto internally on thousands of production services and Corretto is certified as compatible with the Java SE standard. With Corretto, you can develop and run Java applications on popular operating systems, including Amazon Linux 2, Windows, and macOS. Amazon Corretto 8 is in Preview."

Seems that Amazon is not paying Oracle a cent and is not running Java's official JRE :)

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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