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Author | Topic: Oracle Wins Ruling Against Google Over Java APIs | |||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
The Register has a relevant article - mainly focussed on the continued use of Java 8.
The CEO of JClarity argued:
"Java is actually more free," said Verburg. The reason is that Oracle officially supports the OpenJDK and works with OpenJDK providers to share security fixes. "But if you just go to the Oracle download site, you have to make a decision. Do you want commercial Java, or Oracle's OpenJDK build, or OpenJDK from somewhere else? You have to make a choice. That's the confusion in the marketplace."
Oracle’s product manager for Java SE apparently agreed. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
I don't know if perhaps there's a great deal of information in that article that I'm not picking up on because of my lack of familiarity with the variety of providers of JDKs, but to me it seemed to be saying that there's a significant break in continuity at Java 9, which Oracle acknowledges "did break some things" and "The way the JDK was structured prior to Java 9 was just unmaintainable."
Since I don't work in a community of Java developers and can't soak up background information, I have to get all my information from reading webpages. What I'm finding is pretty confusing. Some webpages imply that OpenJDK isn't following Oracle to Java 9 and beyond, other webpages imply that it is. I don't know what to think. Azul Systems seems be be saying that they're stuck at Java 8. As near as I can gather they make their money by selling enterprise versions of their free stuff, but I don't see how they can keep up with Oracle. Unless their Enterprise OpenJDK is significantly cheaper, why not buy Oracle's? And if it is significantly cheaper then how can they make enough money to support the development effort? Azul Systems has had $200 million in VC funding so far, so investors must be pretty confident it has a solid future, but I just don't see it myself. OpenJDK's based on Java 8 are being maintained just fine, and people whose only confusion is which provider to purchase OpenJDK from are very fortunate. For myself, I've found more profound ways to be confused. What I interpret Oracle as saying is that they took the JDK for Java 9 in a new direction because they wanted to introduce changes incompatible with the Java 8 JDK. Oracle is now up to Java 11. I get the impression that it will take a concerted effort for OpenJDK to cross the hump from Java 8 to Java 9 and beyond, but like I said, some stuff on the web (like at java.net) implies they have crossed that hump. Again, I don't know what to think. But what does seem clear is that despite all the noise Oracle makes about supporting OpenJDK into the future, tney have managed to create a significant break at the Java 8/9 boundary. For example, the top of this webpage at Azul Systems has a count-up clock of how long it's been since the last free Oracle Java 8 update: Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK. I lack the necessary background to be sure I understand the significance, maybe this is just Azul Systems scaremongering, but it doesn't sound good. It makes it sound like anyone who wants those post Java 8 features mentioned in that article you linked to is going to have to pay Oracle for them because no OpenJDK version out there will have them anytime soon. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
There were some major revisions with Java 9 that required some code rewrites.
OpenJDK is currently supported up to Java 11 and Java 12 is coming (9 and 10 are out of support). The Azul page you link to mentions OpenJDK Java 11, too. There is no need to buy OpenJDK - it’s a free download. Even the OpenJDK builds from Azul are advertised as free with no restrictions, and I don’t see any reason to disbelieve them. The Azul counter is not just a scare tactic. Oracle ended free support for commercial users of Java 8 in January (personal users still get support until the end of next year). Since Azul make money from selling support to commercial users Zulu Enterprise it is advertising, but it isn’t false.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
PaulK writes: There is no need to buy OpenJDK - it’s a free download. Even the OpenJDK builds from Azul are advertised as free with no restrictions, and I don’t see any reason to disbelieve them. I don't disbelieve them. My concern is that they can't make enough money selling enterprise versions to stay in business. If they and Oracle are both charging for basically the same thing, how will they outcompete Oracle?
OpenJDK is currently supported up to Java 11 and Java 12 is coming (9 and 10 are out of support). The Azul page you link to mentions OpenJDK Java 11, too. For me this is just more confusion. That part of the page doesn't actually say OpenJDK but OpenJFX, and I don't know what OpenJFX is. Following the link took me to a page that assumes you already know what OpenJFX is. I could look it up further, but I've had my fill of unfulfilling research into Java today.
The Azul counter is not just a scare tactic. Oracle ended free support for commercial users of Java 8 in January (personal users still get support until the end of next year). Since Azul make money from selling support to commercial users Zulu Enterprise it is advertising, but it isn’t false. I didn't think it was false, but look at the wording: "Days since the last free Oracle Java 8 update - what's your plan?" It implies some urgency. I'd translate it as, "Oracle isn't providing free Java 8 updates anymore, so you better figure out what you're going to do." Why would the lack of free updates push Azul Systems customers toward their enterprise edition? --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
quote: They are still supporting Java 8. They aren’t charging for the JDK - and they are supporting that one, not Oracle’s. They aren’t Oracle. They have other products (e.g. the Zing JVM) that they do charge for.
quote: That certainly isn’t what I see. I see the home page for OpenJDK, with OpenJFX only one link near the bottom of a very long list of links.
quote: Because OpenJDK Java 8 is still supported, and Azul’s Enterprise support packages provide even stronger support. Including out-of-band updates.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Can the APIs of free and open source software be copyrighted? Patented? If a company (say, Oracle) gives a programming system away for free (say, Java), can they later say to another company (say, Google), "Hey, yeah it's free, but we didn't intend you to use it that way, so for you it's not free." If Google creates Android (which is also free) on top of Java (which, remember, is free and open), can Oracle claim Google made money on it and sue Google for, oh, say, $8.8 billion? Sure, why not? Its free as the air to download most operating systems. But can I therefore co-opt the sites logo and reputation to enrich myself just because there's no money on the front end? Java, while commercially free to consumers, is still trademarked and run by licensing agreements. Oracle paid billions of dollars to put that product out in the hopes of making billions more on the back end, just as Google does on its search engine. Open sourcing is common to get a product out en masse... but its not an invitation to steal the product design. "Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
PaulK writes: quote:They are still supporting Java 8. They aren’t charging for the JDK - and they are supporting that one, not Oracle’s. They aren’t Oracle. They have other products (e.g. the Zing JVM) that they do charge for. But it's all still frameworks for getting your Java-based product out to customers. I'm wondering why, if you're going to pay for something, you would buy it from Azul instead of Oracle? Is there some value added that Azul provides that Oracle doesn't? Is their price significantly lower (in which case can they still make a profit?)? I don't know what "Zing JVM" is, but why would someone buy it from Azul instead of the equivalent from Oracle?
PaulK writes: Percy writes: PaulK writes: Percy writes: For example, the top of this webpage at Azul Systems has a count-up clock of how long it's been since the last free Oracle Java 8 update: Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK. The Azul page you link to mentions OpenJDK Java 11, too. That part of the page doesn't actually say OpenJDK but OpenJFX,... That certainly isn’t what I see. I see the home page for OpenJDK, with OpenJFX only one link near the bottom of a very long list of links. You must be looking at a different webpage. Click on the link in the nested quotes above. Search for the string "11", which occurs in just one place and only in reference to the OpenJFX builds for OpenJDK 8 and 11. I don't know what OpenJFX is. But in looking at that page again I see that it does mention builds of OpenJDK 12, which implies that builds of earlier versions of OpenJDK like 11 and 10 must exist, too. This is a prime example of why I find this so confusing, because another webpage talks about how JDK had to be reconfigured going forward to Java 9 but that they broke some things, implying (but not explicitly stating) that others (like Azul) wouldn't be able to implement their own versions beyond 8. But obviously they *were* able to build their own versions. How? Did they implement so as to be broken in the same way? Did they fix the things that were broken, which I'm betting they couldn't do since they were probably architectural rather than code bugs? If there are non-Oracle OpenJDK builds of Java 9 and up that are just fine, then why does a good portion of the Java community feel it imprudent to go beyond Java 8? It feels to me that it must have something to do with the things that Oracle admits they broke in the JDK at Java 9.
quote: Because OpenJDK Java 8 is still supported, and Azul’s Enterprise support packages provide even stronger support. Including out-of-band updates. I don't know what "out-of-band updates" and hence also don't understand why they'd be an incentive to purchase Azul's enterprise products. Don't feel like you have to be the one to bring my Java understanding up to speed. I have no plans to implement anything in Java. I used a JDK (probably OpenJDK, but I don't recall) a couple of times maybe 4 and 7 years ago, but only to help me understand Java. Interestingly, it is Java 8 from Oracle installed on my Windows machine. Updates occur automatically, the most recent earlier this week. If Oracle is up to Java 11, why is the default for Windows to install Java 8? Is it because most Java software out there isn't compatible with Java 9 and above? I see problems down the road. Right now I'm merely sounding the warning that Oracle is acting like they want to avoid alarming the larger Java community while at the same time turning Java into a significant profit center. The Java community seems to recognize the potential threat while believing everything will be fine. I don't share their optimism. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Hyroglyphx writes: Sure, why not? You sound so confident, but the case between Google and Oracle has wended its way through the courts with each court reversing the one below. Google is currently appealing to the Supreme Court to rule on whether API's can be copyrighted.
But can I therefore co-opt the site's logo... Google didn't do this. If you have an Android phone, try and find the Java logo.
...but its not an invitation to steal the product design. But did Google steal Oracle's product design? If Azul can implement their own rangeCheck() function for Windows, why can't Google implement their own rangeCheck() function for Android? Is there an actual reason for the difference in Oracle's position concerning the two platforms, or is it just that Android and Google are where the money is? --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
quote: Likely they are cheaper - especially for those still sticking to Java 8. Oracle is not known for low prices.
quote: Given that Oracle’s JVM used to be free, I’m sure they have some selling points.
quote: That isn’t the same link. But the title of the page is:
Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK
And I don’t understand how you could miss the fact that “OpenJFX for OpenJDK 8 and 11” explicitly refers to OpenJDK 11. (And if you actually click on the links you can see that OpenJDK 11 and 8 are available for download.)
quote: But that doesn’t imply any such thing. OpenJDK is supported by Oracle and has the right to make the same changes.
quote: Oracle broke things, therefore code written for Java 8 is not guaranteed to work with Java 9 or later. In addition Java 9 and 10 were only supported for a short time. Some institutions are conservative and like to stick with what works. (Some of our customers stuck on Java 4 for years). Sticking with Java 8 made sense until it ran out of support - and it didn’t make sense for customers who require long support lives to move to Java 9 or 10.
quote: It means that updates will be shipped as soon as they are ready, instead of waiting on a regular release cycle.
quote: I can’t answer that. It could be the reasons above, or it could be that you have Java 8 so that it will update that for as long as possible until you choose to go for a newer version. Or it could be something else.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
PaulK writes: quote:Likely they are cheaper - especially for those still sticking to Java 8. Oracle is not known for low prices. But if Azul has made the investment to release their own versions of OpenJDK 9-12, how do they make money if they're mainly giving their software away while selling some enterprise versions of OpenJDK 8.
quote: Given that Oracle’s JVM used to be free, I’m sure they have some selling points. That's what I'm curious about - what are the selling points? Can Azul make money in the long term? They're private, so there's no annual financial info, just the amounts of VC funding.
quote: That isn’t the same link. It's the link I was looking at when I wrote - I suspected you were looking at a different link, and that's I quoted the whole exchange for you.
But the title of the page is:
Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK
And I don’t understand how you could miss the fact that “OpenJFX for OpenJDK 8 and 11” explicitly refers to OpenJDK 11. I didn't miss the fact. It talks about Azul's OpenJFX build for OpenJDK 8 and 11, but whose OpenJDK 8 and 11 they mean it doesn't say. Maybe it seems a stupid thing to be uncertain about, but I have mentioned several times that I'm not knowledgeable about all the vegetables in the Java garden. I don't even have analogs in my mind of what most of this stuff is. Does it help if I mention that I was an assembler/Fortran/Algol/SAIL/bliss/Pascal/c/C++ programmer who never used an IDE for development until I wrote an app in Swift a couple years ago? I still use emacs for most stuff.
(And if you actually click on the links you can see that OpenJDK 11 and 8 are available for download.) I don't know what links you mean. There are no links for OpenJDK 8 and 11 at Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK or at OpenJFX link. The downloads on the latter page are for OpenJFX, not OpenJDK.
quote: But that doesn’t imply any such thing. But that he reluctantly conceded that yeah, okay, they did break a few things, implies a problem. I've already said I'm coming at this from the outside with no help, that there are contradictory webpages, that I can't possibly know who to believe, and that I find the contradictory information confusing. But I am trying to understand it, and people don't make concessions like that unless there's a problem. So if the problem isn't that Azul and so forth would have trouble creating their own OpenJDK's beyond Java 8 then what's the problem?
OpenJDK is supported by Oracle and has the right to make the same changes. I wasn't questioning whether Azul had the right but whether they had the resources. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
Percy, I will grant that you are confused, but I don’t think that conflicting web pages are the main problem.
If you are looking at a page titled:
Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK
and fail to find the links to download the OpenJDK builds you have a problem. How about Zulu for Windows ? If you can say
That part of the page doesn't actually say OpenJDK but OpenJFX,
while noticing that it explicitly mentions “OpenJDK 8 and 11” you have a problem (especially as the existence of OpenJDK 11 was the point in question) Now while I had heard the name I don’t have any special knowledge of Azul. However, you do need to know that OpenJDK is an open source project. Azul is providing builds of it and selling support - which is a model other open source companies have followed. They don’t need the resources to write a complete JDK because they don’t do that.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
I'm not sure how to thank someone for trying to explain something to me while insulting me at the same time. If you consider the Azul pages in isolation then it lessens the confusion, but if you include other pages I've linked to, like the one from the guy at Red Hat or the one from the guy at Oracle, they don't say the same thing as Azul. Who to believe?
Also, I think that sometimes you're looking at different webpages. I provided links to the pages I thought you were referring to, and they contained no links to OpenJDK builds. Zulu for Windows does contain such links, but this is the first time you linked to this page.
They don’t need the resources to write a complete JDK because they don’t do that. But Oracle "broke" the JDK after 8. What did Azul, for example, do to address these problems, if anything? I don't know - do you? Can you take a Java project from Azul's OpenJDK 11 and have it work transparently on Oracle's OpenJDK 11? I don't know this either - do you? My concern is that Oracle is going to find ways make such things more difficult, pushing more and more people toward purchasing solutions from Oracle while still trying to make it seem that they want to encourage rather than antagonize the larger Java community. I think there's a comparison to be drawn with Red Hat, which took a different route. They didn't try to copyright APIs, and they didn't create convoluted library relationships that make it difficult for customers to know when they're using something free and when they're not. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
quote: If you find reporting what you are doing “insulting” then as I said, you have a problem
quote: But that page is one of the links on the Azul page that you originally provided. One of the prominent links that you couldn’t find. Despite the fact that it is very obvious.
quote: As I have said before they did not break the JDK - the changes they made to the JDK broke some older programs. And it’s for the OpenJDK project to address, not Azul.
quote: In which case the answer is for the community - users and developers - to embrace OpenJDK instead of paying Oracle.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
PaulK writes: quote:If you find reporting what you are doing “insulting” then as I said, you have a problem You're not reporting but contriving fictions. Who really has the problem, the person trying to figure things out, or the person saying, "Oh, I'll help," while telling them how idiotic they are? Do you know what the verb "to help" means? Or is it that you've got some rules you follow, that you help people who agree with you but invent ways to insult those who don't under the guise of help?
quote: But that page is one of the links on the Azul page that you originally provided. One of the prominent links that you couldn’t find. Despite the fact that it is very obvious. But I wasn't looking for that link. I didn't link to that webpage because of its content but because it contained a count-up clock of how long it's been since the last free Oracle Java 8 update. I chose that page at random because many Azul pages contain that clock at the top. Then you said, "The Azul page you link to mentions OpenJDK Java 11, too," but this isn't accurate. It does mention it, but only in the context of OpenJFX, and not as a link. I reported that back to you, and now you're trying to help me by telling me what an idiot I am for not noticing all the other links on the page. I don't need this kind of help. If this is how you're going to continue helping me then please just go away.
quote: As I have said before they did not break the JDK - the changes they made to the JDK broke some older programs. And it’s for the OpenJDK project to address, not Azul. But others say they did break JDK at Java 9, for instance see Java 9, it did break some things,' Oracle bod admits to devs still clinging to version 8, and that's just one of the links I came across that echo these sentiments. This is why I'm finding this all so confusing: there are claims that Oracle both did and did not break things, and that it does and it doesn't matter that they broke things.
quote: In which case the answer is for the community - users and developers - to embrace OpenJDK instead of paying Oracle. This entails the risks I've been talking about, as summarized here in this optimistic piece The future of Java and OpenJDK updates without Oracle support:
quote: He expresses confidence it can be done but says it represents a challenge. My own opinion is that despite making noises to the contrary, Oracle is a bad player in all this. They will try to ride a fine line that encourages the Java community while pushing as many as possible toward entrapment in their pay solutions. That many users don't even know they've stumbled over the boundary between free and pay content until notified by Oracle is pretty good evidence that this is so. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
quote: In reality you keep missing the obvious and making excuses (sometimes bizarre) to avoid admitting it. And that is your problem. If you are insulted that I notice, that is also your problem.
quote: Let me point out what really happened. I pointed out
(And if you actually click on the links you can see that OpenJDK 11 and 8 are available for download.)
You replied
I don't know what links you mean. There are no links for OpenJDK 8 and 11 at Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK Despite the fact that the links are there and quite obvious. And just to make it more obvious, the page title is “Download Zulu® tested, certified builds of OpenJDK”.
quote: Earlier I mentioned that it did mention OpenJDK 11 because it does. This is what it says:
Migrating from JavaFX? You can get free OpenJFX builds of Zulu for OpenJDK 8 and 11
Now it does say that it is offering OpenJFX builds FOR OpenJDK 11 - but that is certainly a mention of OpenJDK 11. And do I really need to point out that it would be weird to offer something FOR software that doesn’t exist ?
quote: Let’s look at that article
So why have developers not upgraded? Simply, Java 9 introduced major changes, including internal restructuring, new modularity (known as "Project Jigsaw"), and the removal of little-used APIs. These changes broke code, and even developers who are happy to make the necessary revisions have dependency issues. "We have problems with libraries that do not yet support the latest versions," said one QCon attendee.
Martijn Verburg, CEO of Java performance troubleshooter JClarity, said there had been some progress. "Of the top 1,000 most popular Maven libraries, about 65 per cent of them are now Java 9+ compatible. Six months ago it was about 42 per cent. There is probably another year to go before it is all cleaned up."
In other words it as as I said. The JDK itself wasn’t broken - but the new JDK broke programs that had worked with earlier versions.
quote: However, the previously cited article has this:
"Java is actually more free," said Verburg. The reason is that Oracle officially supports the OpenJDK and works with OpenJDK providers to share security fixes.
Verburg is CEO of JClarity and the article is more recent (this month as opposed to September). So it seems that Oracle is still providing some support to OpenJDK, even if it is no longer offering fixes to OpenJDK bugs that aren’t security issues affecting Oracle’s own JDK.
quote: You won’t find me defending Oracle. But as I said the answer is to embrace OpenJDK. It has major backers who can fight for it (and have incentives to do so). It’s not easy for Oracle to trap you if you aren’t using their software.
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