[German]A brief information for users of the JAVA Runtime Environment (JRE). Oracle has announced for Java SE 8 that the Runtime (JRE) – or specifically the updates – may no longer be used in the corporate environment without a commercial license from January 2019 oneward. So it could be possible, that business users has to pay a fee for using Java products.
Changes announced during last update
I've noticed that there would be changes for corporate customers for JAVA from January 2019 during updating Java SE Version 8 Update 181. Suddenly a dialog box informed me about some changes.
The German dialog box text announces important information for Oracle Java SE Roadmap. It says also, business users are affected from January 2019 due to changes. The a German blog reader contacted me a few days ago and send me a link to the page Oracle Java SE 8-Releaseupdates. There you may read:
Public updates for Oracle Java SE 8 will remain available for individual, personal use through at least the end of 2020.
Public updates for Oracle Java SE 8 released after January 2019 will not be available for business, commercial or production use without a commercial license. […].
End of Life for Java 8 SE Public Updates
Here are parts of the text from Oracle's Java SE Support Roadmap (dated June 28, 2018).
(Source: Oracle)
My reading is that public updates for Java SE 8 will end in 2020 for private users and versions 9 and 10 have already expired or will be out of support next month. The upcoming Java SE 11 will not be available in public support at all (unless Oracle changes the table above). Companies require a commercial user license (for Java SE 8) from January 2019 to use updates.
(Source: Oracle)
The Java SE Support Roadmap shown above says nothing about Public Support for upcoming Java SE 11 (the LTS variant awaited in September 2018 erscheint).
What will it cost?
A commercial license does not mean paying automatically a fee. But: The Apera blog post Oracle Will Charge for Java Starting in 2019 from May 2018 says, that from 2019 probably a fee for using Java SE (not the Java Runtime Environment JRE) has to be paid. They cite figures from Oracle's worldwide price list. Here are the figures:
(Source: Blog post Oracle Will Charge for Java Starting in 2019, click to zoom)
The blog post specifies exactly which products this applies to. So if in doubt, read this article written by an Oracle expert. Quote from the article: With Oracle's recent announcement, companies should start thinking about the following questions. The questions are then listed.
