Discussion on Java 11 and licensing changes

General Discussion
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So, Java 10 is deprecated (as fast as Java 9, not sure why and how Oracle makes sense of it). And now Java 11 is out with new licensing. https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/oracle-jdk-releases-for-java-11-and-later

They say not applicable on the End of Life page. Not sure how to understand this either. Maybe it will only receive commercial support now. https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/eol-135779.html

They say old BCL license is gone and now one either has to use OpenJDK or a commercial license. Wonder how this can affect our projects and how it affects us when bundling Java in our products. We still use Java 8, which as i get will be supported till the end of 2020 (commercial support till January 2019, but i’m not sure if we fall into that category).

Should we go to OpenJDK now? Or maybe bundling is not affected? Never used this version myself and remember a few issues with it on the forums reported by other users.

There are no JRE downloads here (yet, or maybe they will be only for commercial users), only the JDK https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index-jsp-138363.html Although install4j is already able to pull the 11 version.

There are some tickets related to moving our projects to newer Java support:
Add support for 64-bit Java https://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/SPARK-2016
Add support for Java 11 https://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/OF-1383
Bundle installer with Java 11 https://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/SPARK-2018
Add support for Java 11 https://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/SPARK-2017

@guus, @akrherz, @gdt, @speedy

2 Likes
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a) How can we get a new MINA release to clear the blocker we have on https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/DIRMINA/issues/DIRMINA-1088 ?

b) Do we have to distribute Java with the installer? Anyone capable of installing Openfire can install Java.

c) Although in theory the Oracle JDK has a 3 year support compared with the 6 month OpenJDK, you only get those 3 years if you’ve a commercial support contract. I know some of my customers would probably prefer an Oracle JDK for that reason, but then Openfire already has distributions with and without Java.

Some thoughts, anyway.

Greg

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We have yet to see if Oracle will provide installers for JRE 11. Otherwise bundling could be the only option. This is not so critical with Openfire, as admins usually don’t have problems with separate java. But for clients it is easier to deploy one package instead of having to manage massive deployment of two packages. Users also can be confused by the error and wouldn’t know what java version to install. Bundled java is also isolated in that one app and general java vulnerabilities are less critical.