Submitted by Oracle’s Sun Java JDK packages are to be removed from the Ubuntu partner repositories and disabled on users systems. Oracle, in retiring the “Operating System Distributor License for Java,” means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package. The change will affect Ubuntu 10.04 LTs, Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 users only. Users who have the “sun-java-6” package installed on their system will see it removed via a future software update — the exact date of which is “TBD.”
The web plugin has already gone. I installed the Java update over the weekend on my Lucid system and discovered that the Java plugin no longer worked after I read on Slashdot that the plugin was to be removed immmeiately the rest later. Sun Java still works. I tried the OpenJava IcedTea plugin but it didn’t work at all with the sites I tried. It loaded then hung. On Firefox it caused a runaway process while on Chromium it just hung.
I have downloaded the latest Java 64 bit binary from Oracle but haven’t had time to install it yet.
icedtea-plugin is utterly useless
Works for me ok.
try pingtest.net
I know LOTS of programming languages, so I wouldn’t feel much loss without it, but I rather like Java for being able to put together reasonably portable GUI apps. As languages go, it’s not particularly elegant, but it’s not terrible either, and it has a huge ecosystem.
But Oracle seems bent on destroying everything it acquired from Sun. They mucked up OpenOffice, they’re working really hard at destroying Solaris (which was a great OS… back in 2000 or so), and now they’re turning their attention to Java. About the only thing they’re doing half right is to update the SPARC architecture, although they’re still really horribly out-dated.
I understand their desire to make a profit from the assets they acquired, but it’s amazing just how clueless they are about how to go about it. You don’t profit from something at all if you run off everyone who would have used it.
Edited 2011-12-19 17:59 UTC
While I’m not a great supporter of Java or Oracle, but Java isn’t going away. Just the Sun JRE/JDK is going away, OpenJDK is the replacement.
Yes, and some programs, just don’t work with it. jDownloader, for example, runs for about hour or two, and then throws an exception.
Yes, those would have to be fixed I guess.
A lot of Java programs don’t work right with OpenJDK, e.g. development tools by JetBrains.
Can anybody explain me what is the big deal with this?
Oracle is removing the Java JRE to be distribuited in Linux. But it is promoting OpenJDK to be used instead of that.
I prefer OpenJDK since it is complete open source compared to Java JRE.
Is there a compatibility problem? is there any Oracle tricky commercial move where Java JRE is going to run better than OpenJDK?
What is the problem moving to OpenJDK?
Yes, there are compatibility problems. Many third party applications don’t work with OpenJDK yet. Crashplan is one and I’m sure there are others. Yes, I’m sure that it’s the fault of those those applications but the net effect from a user’s point of view is still that they can run it with Sun JDK and not with OpenJDK.
My bank uses a java-based authenticator thing that didn’t handle openJDK well last time I tried, too. Oh well, I guess it’s about time to see if they’ve fixed it. (Where “they” can be my bank or OpenJDK – either way works.)
My Java app running on top of the OpenJDK crashed when doing some things using JNI, but the same app used to run as wanted in a Sun JDK environment. So… yes, there are incompatibilities.
If Oracle says that JRE 1.7 is based in OpenJDK, then JRE 1.7 should not work with some legacy apps too.
That means they have broken the legacy, not that they removed Java license from Ubuntu to screw up consumers.
The question may be. How different are the binaries of OpenJDK against Oracle Java 7 JRE?
Actually, that is exactly what they did. I’m running Windows 7, and have Java 7 JRE installed. While it doesn’t crash nearly as often as the OpenJDK on Linux, there are numerous Java applications (the sections of LibreOffice coded in Java come to mind) that are highly unstable on it.
You obviously haven’t tried to USE software written for/on the Sun java binaries on OpenJDK. While they might ‘work’ they are ridden with bugs and seemingly random crashes. I wish it wasn’t so
… then I think the title of this post should indicate that, as it’s somewhat misleading.
Thanks
OpenJDK isn’t 100% compatible … and the update will uninstall an already working version of the Java Runtime …
Disclaimer: see comment title.
This is part of a “move to NaCl!” initiative by Google.
NaCl is like java, but few like in browser java applets.
So, its easy to kill that way and have the way free for NaCl (which also happen to work only on Chrome and will probably never work anywhere else)
Either Trolling or Stupid.
Before everyone gets their panties in a wad, you should go to groklaw. They have a link to someone who actually provides a good explanation for this decision. Oracle is now using OpenJDK 7 as the reference platform for its Java. So for 7/1.7, they should be completely compatible. As OpenJDK is open source, there is no reason for Oracle to ship Java under its old license. This has NOTHING to do with Google. Ubuntu has had OpenJDK for a while. But you can still get Oracle’s gratis Java if you want, just under Oracle’s standard license.
Right, that makes a surprising amount of sense.
But OpenJDK isn’t 100% compatible. For fully compatibility you are still going to have to install it yourself via .deb on Ubuntu.
There are no Oracle .debs only rpm’s and an executable .bin binary installer you need for debian based and other non rpm distro’s.
it’s really simple:
Oracle: does it make money ? no ? scrap it.
I’m not saying companies should be charities… but Oracle would sell their mother and little sister into slavery if it could make money (correction: they would lease them… and charge you forever)
Because Sexual Slavery of close female relatives isn’t quite as evil as Software licenses to make money … oh wait … WTF?!
Edited 2011-12-19 20:52 UTC
This metaphor started out fine but is now going down a bad path.
No it started out stupid and I just brought it to its natural conclusion.
I used to be the DLJ project lead back when I worked for Sun. There’s nothing to worry about here.
The DLJ project was a temporary measure enacted before the plan to open source Sun’s Java implementation, which eventually became the OpenJDK. The OpenJDK project itself has become good enough that the DLJ project is no longer necessary, especially as OpenJDK 7 has been out for awhile now.
Because the DLJ project no longer served a purpose, there’s no need to maintain the DLJ project, no need to maintain the Debian/Ubuntu packages and the rest of it.
“Oracle” and “Nothing to worry about” don’t go very well in the same sentence, though 🙂
OpenJDK seems like the logical step forward, but pulling the Oracle JDK so soon seems a bit premature to me – especially considering that Java is used a lot by some of the very slow-moving enterprisey projects. Does OpenJDK have 100% compatibility with the Oracle SDK? Including sun extensions and JNI?
OpenJDK is the reference platform. If you are developing against it, then your software is going to run on Oracle’s Java just fine. If you develop against something else, you are going to get mixed results. Its a one way street, not two ways. Oracle’s Java may have a bunch of extra functionality in it, that’s why OpenJDK is the reference.
That’s a wonderful news. Nobody’s using JAVA anyway, Oracle’s policy and overall ‘evil factor’ leaves no other choice for developers [licensing problems], plus: it poses serious security problems, so it’s about a time.
However – if you *really* need JAVA that much – there is OpenJDK with JRE plugin anyway. It might not be that compatible, but it would probobly solve the problem. I got this installed on my system, though I never use it [and it’s disabled in browser].
Well, lot of big Enterprise systems are developed in Java. For instance, NASDAQ, the fastest time critical stock exchange in the world, is developed in Java. It runs on Linux.
Maybe he should have said: “Nobody _should_ be using Java anyways”
Removing from the repository is one thing, but remotely disabling the package from end user systems shouldn’t even be considered by repository admins.
Of course I know it’s technically possible, but actually invoking such control is as bad as amazon deleting books remotely. There’s a very spooky feeling about it.
Would this affect the JavaScript functions in Firefox?
no. javascript has nothing to do with java outside of some syntax and a name
This will affect Android development drastically. Did anyone think this way as well?
This should not affect Android development at all (I am an Android developer). Oracle is not discontinuing Java, they are merely saying that Ubuntu cannot distribute it. You can still go to the Oracle website and download by hand.
The Linux version is just a .zip file, that I downloaded and extracted. Once I set my JAVA_HOME, I was off and running again with no problems.
Thanks. I thought that because since Ubuntu is the main development environment (at least in most docs you have references to Ubuntu LTS as the dev. environment), it would likely to be a “nuisance” or “unsupported”. Surely one could use any Linux, but a standard distro with LTS might come handy.
Another entry to add in reasons_not_to_ever_use_java.txt
I’d like to see Sun/Oriface try to remove JRE 1.6 from my win-98 machine…
Wow, am I the only one who would’ve expected a forced removal of an already-installed package from someone like Apple, not from a GNU/Linux distributor? That seems pretty damned high-handed to me, even for canonical. Now, I’m sure anyone who knows their way around dpkg knows how to get around this, but still… nasty shock for the poor end-users, isn’t it?
You don’t even need to know anything about dpkg to avoid this. Just don’t tick any updates for Java in software updates. I didn’t know they were going to remove the plugin when I updated on Sunday so I lost it.
What is irritating is that after the inclusion in 2006 of the Sun binaries in the Ubuntu repositories it made it easy for new (and old) users to install Java. Now a new user has to deal with the command line and edit profiles to set environmental variables to get Sun/Oracle Java working. It’s OK for me as I have been installing Java on Linux since 2000 but it’s tougher for a newbie.
I need to run the Sun/Oracle Linux because a lot of scientific applications (and websites for the plugin) depend on the Sun extentions so I have to have it on my system rather than the OpenJDK for me to be able to work.
Edited 2011-12-21 17:59 UTC
They’re worse than Apple for taking open source projects and forking/closing them and more successful than Microsoft at killing them. They’ve seem to have been building their entire company strategy on this for the last few years.
So screw Java and screw Adobe and Flash while we’re at it.
Checkout Robert Scoble – Talking Enterprise Java with Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul
What did I learn? Azul’s Java runtime is a lot faster and more efficient than Oracle’s is. What does that mean? Developers can build better apps.
Enterprise Java: Azule’s speedy answer to Oracle
https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Baa8iUndNdE