On Tax Day, Americans had to pay their taxes, but it was also the day that Oracle began charging a Java tax for commercial use. Users will have to pay for the privilege of using Java after April 15, 2019. Existing versions of Java were included.
See our post about what you need to know about the changes.
How long will new releases of Java be supported for? There is a fee for organizations that use the commercially licensed JDK in production.
Licensing for the Java SE variant of the Oracle JDK for use on server starts at $25 per processor per month, while the licensing for the Java SE Desktop variant starts at $2.50 per user per month.
I am frequently asked by customers whether they should pay for Java going online and I often see the same question being raised in online forums. The change in the Java release cycle and associated licensing model is the immediate reason for this dilemma.
This came into effect for end users in January of this year. I will try to explain what changes have been made and what options are available in Java software. I will try to clarify the difference between the two. A paid support license is required from version 11 onwards.
Commercial support is offered by this license. For as long as the license is paid for, eight years of support from the release of an LTS version is provided.
Why is Java no longer free?
Can someone break down the plans that Oracle has for Java for me, since it's no longer free for commercial users?
If you need to purchase a Java License for your company, you should review your Java licensing requirements. If you conclude that you need a license, you can decide if you want to purchase a Java license or migrate to a non-licensable Java JDK.
If your usage is personal or commercial, you need to identify it. The way that you can use Oracle products is different between commercial and personal use. Is Java free?
Java is free for commercial use from the beginning. One agreement applies to older versions of Java and another applies to newer versions. The third licensing agreement applies at Java 17
Under the new "Java is still free" article, the Oracle JDK is free for production use again. The new version covers NFTC. According to surveys, the most popular Java distributions are not Oracle. Open JDK distributions from AdoptOpenJDK, Eclipse Temurin, Amazon, Microsoft, and other vendors seem to be preferred by developers.
Commercial support is provided by these organizations. In the case of Eclipse Temurin, Azul provides such support.
The licensing policy for JDK 8 was changed in 2019. As free public updates for Java 8 were no longer provided, companies had to pay for commercial support or look for a substitute.
The feedback from developers who wanted to have "trusted Oracle JDK under an unambiguously free terms license" led to the introduction of the NFTC license.
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Do I have to pay for JDK?
The code patches that went into Open JDK and Oracle JDK are referred to as updates. Open JDK updates are always free, but each vendor can choose to have support updates. It requires staff to answer users' problems, which costs money, and support means a commitment to fix bugs.
There has never been free support for OpenJDK. You need to be aware of the changes with Desktop Java SE.