Distribution and Releases of Oracle JDK binaries for commercial use

After the recent changes announced by Oracle in 2018 about the Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap and the future release plan, there has been a lot of confusion about the possibility to continue using newer versions of Java for free also for commercial use.

First of all we want to reassure Data Virtuality users that basically nothing changes for them: no additional costs or fees will be requested.

Starting from JDK 9, Oracle has reorganized the binaries of the JDK by providing two different binary distributions: Oracle JDK and Oracle’s OpenJDK builds with two different licenses.

While Oracle JDK 9 will be still distributed under the “Oracle Binary Code License Agreement”, Oracle’s OpenJDK builds are released under the open source GNU General Public License v2, with the Classpath Exception (GPLv2+CPE).

One of the reasons behind this Oracle’s decision was to split the original BCL license (which historically combined both free and paid commercial terms) into two separate distributions and licenses. Another reason was to adopt a new release model and cadence which plans major releases every six months.

This means that the main differences between these two distributions, besides the licenses, are related to how updates and bug fixes will be delivered and how long a specific JDK version will be officially supported for free and commercial users.
While Oracle JDK uses a LTS (Long-Term Support) model with LTS releases occurring every three years (JDK 8 was the first LTS release and the next ones will be JDK 11, JDK 17, etc.), Oracle’s OpenJDK does not follow this model and new updates will be available only for six months, until the next version of the JDK will be released.

Starting from Oracle JDK 11, the two binary distributions of Oracle JDK and Oracle’s OpenJDK will be functionally identical and interchangeable and some missing commercial features from Oracle JDK are now also included in OpenJDK, like for example Java Flight Recorder, Java Mission Control, etc. There are still some small cosmetic and packaging differences but they do not affect the standard functionalities of the JVM.

Data Virtuality will distribute Oracle’s OpenJDK in bundle with Data Virtuality Server and Data Virtuality Studio. Security updates and critical bug fixes of the JDK will be periodically included in minor releases of Data Virtuality software and upgrades to latest versions of the Oracle’s OpenJDK will be distributed with new major releases.