[Foomf]

Oracle makes me too uneasy. Can I use Java without the worry of incurring Oracle's wrath? Maybe, if I make sure I use openjdk/jump through some hoops I'll be fine. Or, I could just use any other language and not have that worry looming over me. C# is right there if I want a java-like experience without the anxiety of Oracle breaking my kneecaps.

I don't know how to use java and not violate one of Oracle's EULAs. I could read about it and figure out how to do it safely, or I could just not use java. Java isn't essential (for greenfield projects). There's lots of good alternatives, so I'd rather do that.

[samus]

Just use OpenJDK (only downside is you have to upgrade every half year) or a distribution of another vendor (most people use Eclipse, or Red Hat if they already are Red Hats customers). It's really not as difficult as it is made out to be.

If you use Oracle's distribution of the JDK then you are an enterprise customer and should have the resources to deal with their license terms.

[Foomf]

"Am I using the correct language runtime distribution (or version thereof) so I don't get into legal trouble?" Is a question none of Java's competitors have to ask.

Even using OpenJDK is a sword of damocles waiting to fall. If I forget to update OpenJDK, Oracle could come after me. It's just risk that I don't have to worry about by choosing not to go with Java. It's probably not a lot of risk, but it's risk nonetheless that doesn't exist with Java's competitors.

Competition is so fierce in the language space and there are so many good options that java can't afford to have any friction points like this.

EDIT: I got oracle openjdk and oracle jdk mixed up. They're different things. It looks like the oracle openjdk does not have its license change, the oracle jdk does. This is a problem/risk I don't have to worry about with any other language, but getting the two mixed up is on me.

[signal11]

> only downside is you have to upgrade every half year

LTS OpenJDK distributions from eg Eclipse (17, 21 etc) stick around for longer[1]. Heck, you can still get updates for JDK 11 and even 8.

You do have to update the runtime for security and other fixes, but that’s true for other languages too.

[1] https://adoptium.net/support

[stronglikedan]

All that just seems like friction when there are frictionless alternatives available. Life's too short for friction.

[brunoborges]

> Oracle makes me too uneasy. Can I use Java without the worry of incurring Oracle's wrath?

Hey! I work at Microsoft and helped us launch the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK.

I can categorically say that yes you can use Java without worrying. As long as you don't use a commercial binary from a vendor that has certain licensing restrictions.

Our build of OpenJDK is free for any use, and comes with commercial support (you know, the one you can open a ticket and ask us to look into the issue) at no extra cost for workloads on Azure.

[stu2421]

From another HN very :) lengthy thread:

"Where I work now, we went through 2 or 3 rounds of funding. Each round involved lawyers doing due dilligence, checking the licensing

of all the software we use, and all the libraries we use, and so on. No issues were raised regarding Java or MySql. Bottom line, I don't know

the difference between this and that license, what I do know is that Oracle licensing for Java and MySql gave us zero grief."

Apr '18 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16859559

[GuB-42]

> C# is right there if I want a java-like experience without the anxiety of Oracle breaking my kneecaps.

Is Microsoft really better than Oracle in that regard?

[mrsmrtss]

If we look at .NET vs Java, then yes, Microsoft is better. Microsoft may charge for some of its dev tools (Visual Studio etc), but .NET itself is and was always totally free.

[egorfine]

Depends. If you were there during the Steve Ballmer time then you know that Microsoft will absolutely betray you on almost every dev tech they roll out.

Otherwise C# and .NET have had a pretty solid track record.

[thfuran]

You don't have to jump through any hoops. If you don't want to deal with Oracle, don't be an enterprise customer of Oracle and instead just get some openjdk distribution.

[brunoborges]

> just get some openjdk distribution

From several sources:

- Oracle themselves, at jdk.java.net - Microsoft, at microsoft.com/openjdk - Red Hat ... - Azul Systems ... - Amazon - Bell Soft - Canonical (Ubuntu ships OpenJDK binaries built by them) - build yourself?

[andrewl-hn]

My semi-conspiracy theory is that the success of Rust is partially due to BigTech companies searching for a "legally-safe" alternative to Java.

The multi-year Google vs Oracle lawsuit put the likes of Amazon and Facebook to unease. And meanwhile there was this safe and performant language with no strings attached under a nice Apache license. They quickly made a Foundation around it as a 501(c)(6) - trade association, and not a "public good"-kind of a non-profit. This essentially means that as long as you're a member and pay the fees you won't be sued - exactly what all these companies wanted. So now they all keep up the funding and employ some of the compiler developers to keep the lights on for next 20 years or longer.

The fact that the language itself is really good for what they need it for is obviously the major reason why they support it, but the legal side of things definitely helped with adoption.

[nirvdrum]

I'm not sure where things fall on your timeline, but in case you missed it, Amazon has their own Java distribution called Corretto. It was first publicly released in 2018:

https://downloads.corretto.aws/#/overview

[HackerThemAll]

This conspiracy theory would explain not only success of Rust, but also Go language and C#/.NET, and any other Java competitor.

I'd say it's 90% because of Oracle and its lawyer-driven business, and 10% because the language is just ugly, and existing libraries are super-ugly and unreadable, with all these Factories and AbstractFactories, and all design patterns forced like a religion whether they're useful or not in a specific context.