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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

From the article -- Providing Oracle OpenJDK builds under the GPL was highly welcomed, but feedback from developers, academia, and enterprises was that they wanted the trusted, rock-solid Oracle JDK under an unambiguously free terms license, too. Oracle appreciates the feedback from the developer ecosystem and are pleased to announce that as of Java 17 we are delivering on exactly that request.

Translation, everyone stopped using our stuff in favor of the GPL version, that sucked so we changed the terms on ours to be free for commercial use. I bet they collect data and resell it but that is just a guess.

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It's probably the same binaries, no added stuff. But yeah, it must have hurt them when the bean counters tallied it up :)

It's also probably worth financially supporting Oracle if you make substantial money from Java-based software. Oracle is by and large responsible for the platform that you are using.

> It's also probably worth financially supporting Oracle if you make substantial money from Java-based software. Oracle is by and large responsible for the platform that you are using.

Mmm... That's an interesting theory, but one does not really know if the money will be spent on tightening down the Java platform and legal attacks or technical improvements[1]. In practice it probably does not matter either way as that company is not cash-constrained in any shape or form.

[1]: https://www.globalnerdy.com/2011/07/03/org-charts-of-the-big...

> when the bean counters tallied it up

If you're making Java, you'll have to count up the beans

Badum Tish

Nice try Larry.

What kind if data would they be collecting and whom selling to? I can’t see any way this could impact their financials?

Don’t forget that Oracle was guilty of shipping the AskBar as part of the JRE for the general public. That’s right, a malware which uploaded your browser history and redirected any 404 to a commercial advertising page, wrecking the web and the understanding of it for everyone.

Oracle is not to be trusted.

That contract was signed by Sun before the acquisition and was discontinued by Oracle as soon as they could.

Didn't Sun do that too?

Sun did it originally during the waning days as well as an even worse yahoo toolbar. Oracle discontinued the contract as soon as they could after acquiring Sun.

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