Oracle seriously needs to be fought in court about this and their other actions.
They're actively hostile to the whole tech community and their entire business model is based on trapping people into paying for things by not making their licenses clear or changing their licenses.
I don't know why anyone would use any software made by Oracle these days, the alternatives and open implementations of their own systems tend to be faster - and their "unbreakable Linux kernel" is a joke and a legal disaster waiting to happen.
How is that? The license is pretty clear, as stated in the article:
> You may not: use the Programs for any data processing or any commercial, production, or internal business purposes other than developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating your Application;
If you cannot understand that language you should not download or use the JDK.
They have been communicating the changes in how OpenJDK and Oracle JDK work for a year now, through many public talks, announcements, blog posts and so on.
Moreover the changes are good for the community. OpenJDK is now the reference implementation and equivalent to the old Oracle JDK in every way. The only reason to use the Oracle JDK now is to get commercial support from Oracle.
Calling this a "trap" is dumb. Not only did Oracle change the licenses to be better for end users, they are highlighting the changes in a big yellow box and the license is written clearly. OpenJDK is regular GPL + an exception so you don't have to GPL your own apps.
> Oracle seriously needs to be fought in court about this and their other actions.
The problem is, to win in court (not just go to court), you need actual grounds. What would be the grounds for suing Oracle in court?
For hiding the terms of the license? They didn't; the new terms have been as plain as any terms are in software licenses.
For changing the terms of the license? But Oracle was never obligated to supply new software on the old terms (unless the old license or some other contract obligated them to, but I don't think that's the case).
For changing the license terms on Java 8? But they had no obligation to continue to supply Java 8 under the old terms. (If you have an old copy of Java 8, the old license continues to apply, unless the old license specifies that Oracle gets to change it. Even if the old license does say that, it's not grounds for a lawsuit.)
So, specifically, on what grounds could you realistically sue Oracle?
Note well: I'm not an apologist for Oracle's behavior. I just don't think there's actual grounds for a lawsuit here.
> Oracle seriously needs to be fought in court about this and their other actions.
The problem is that very few companies have the desire or resources to do this. The community certainly doesn't have the resources. We'd need tens of millions of dollars of legal resources to fight their terrible behaviour.
They're actively hostile to the whole tech community and their entire business model is based on trapping people into paying for things by not making their licenses clear or changing their licenses.
I don't know why anyone would use any software made by Oracle these days, the alternatives and open implementations of their own systems tend to be faster - and their "unbreakable Linux kernel" is a joke and a legal disaster waiting to happen.