Orcale JDK 11 Not Free

Oracle’s JDK 11 is not free for use now. What have you done Oracle.

If you following tech articles and news then you might have came to know about lawsuit between Google and Oracle. If not then long story short, Oracle sued Google for using Java as primary language in there Android Operating in 2010 and final result is that Oracle own the lawsuit after eight years of battle. If you know about Oracle they are pretty rough when it comes to there technology and who is using them and I think Java JDK 11 licensing has been changed.

New Licensing

Here is the link of new license - JDK 11 License. Main part in this whole document I find most required to know is:

“use the Programs for any data processing or any commercial, production, or internal business purposes other than developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating your Application;”

that is you cannot use Java using JDK 11 in production and there will be no free LTS JDK from Oracle. If you are not update Oracle decided that there will be 6 months release cycle for Java which took affect from release of JDK 10. But you can use OpenJDK from Oracle free in production with difference that you will get only selected bug fixes and patches until new JDK version is released whereas in commercial version you will get 8 years of support LTS (Long Term Support).

Checking

If you want to check which version of JDK 11 are you running just type java -version

For OpenJDK

openjdk version "11" 2018-09-25
OpenJDK Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11+28)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11+28, mixed mode)

For Orcale JDK 11

java version "11" 2018-09-25
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11+28)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11+28, mixed mode)

Alternatives

Although Oracle changed the licensing of there own JDK but OpenJDK will availible to use for free in any environment. You can also use Azul’s OpenJDK implementation with support availible as a optional version which uses there own ZuluVM. There is a community led project AdoptOpenJDK.

Year 2019 will be exciting year as a Java developer as there might be other alternatives coming out from different big companies or startups.