

Ask HN: Sun-Java6 packages removed soon from Linux - g-garron

Is this news http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jwuot/sunjava6_packages_removed_soon_from_debianubuntu/ sensationalist?<p>For what I've found here: http://robilad.livejournal.com/90792.html<p>It only seems to be a change in the licensing of Sun-Java packages. And anyway there is the Open-JDK option.<p>Now, how is this going to affect me as a Linux user?
Thanks
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gvb
The license change took away the license for OSes (e.g. linux distributions)
to distribute the Oracle JDK (which includes the Java Runtime Environment) as
part of their distribution.

This means linux distributions can no longer supply the official Oracle JDK as
"native" packages. It is still available for free (monetarily), but only as a
direct download from the Oracle site.

The IcedTea Wikipedia entry <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IcedTea#History> has
a summary list of what proprietary binary bits are in the Oracle JDK. It has a
footnote reference to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Class_Library#Licensing> which is more
definitive.

Impact?

* Ubuntu (and, I presume, all the others) has already deprecated or removed the Oracle JDK, thus little or no impact.

* The Oracle JDK is still available, so from that POV it has little impact. _However,_ the Oracle JDK is now outside the distribution packaging system, so if you download the Oracle JDK and then try to install a package that depends on having a JDK/JRE, the packaging system (e.g. apt/yum) will not know that you have the Oracle JDK installed and will install OpenJDK. This will result in confusion and conflicts (at least, it did for me ;-).

* Oracle says it is moving to being based on the OpenJDK itself, so the dichotomy should resolve itself. [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/open...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/opensourcejdk-jsp-136417.html)

"Oracle's commercial JDK releases will be built from the open-source code, for
the most part. Since there's some encumbered code in the JDK, Oracle will
continue to use that code in commercial releases until it is replaced by
fully-functional open-source alternatives. To learn more about development and
deployment support options, visit the Java Support site."

* Licensees of Oracle SE will still be able to distribute the Oracle JDK: [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/licen...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/licensees-jsp-136136.html)

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g-garron
Great explanation. Thanks.

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g-garron
There original story is also here in HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931650> (The server is slow now)

