One of the biggest advantages of the Java platform is that it’s open source. I’m sure this has been a major factor in Java becoming an almost de facto standard for building massively scalable, high-performance enterprise applications. The OpenJDK project, originally started by Sun Microsystems and now overseen by Oracle, has continued to lead the development of the reference implementation of the Java platform.
Of course, open source is just… source code. If you want to run your JVM-based applications, you will need a binary distribution. (Many other languages like Kotlin and Scala can be compiled to bytecode and run with all the advantages of the JVM).
Oracle Keeps Changing How It Licenses Java
Until a few years ago, most users would opt for the Oracle distribution. It was provided free of charge and came from the same people who lead the platform’s major developments. However, since 2018, Oracle has made a series of changes to the way it licenses its Java Development Kit (JDK). These changes mean that, unless you run your applications in the Oracle Cloud, enterprise users will need to buy a Java SE Subscription. This subscription provides extended maintenance and support for long-term support (LTS) versions of the Oracle JDK. Most recently, Oracle also changed how they calculate the price of the subscription. Now, rather than counting cores or desktop users, they use the total number of employees in your company (full-time, part-time and contractors), even if those employees don’t use Java.
Java Customers Are Seeking Alternatives to Oracle Java
These changes have resulted in the software industry doing what it does best: providing competitive alternative distributions. In much the same way that Linux is an open source project with distributions like Red Hat, Ubuntu, and SuSE, OpenJDK now has distributions from Azul, Amazon, Adoptium, and even Microsoft, to name a few.
What we’ve seen is an increasing number of users deciding to migrate their applications from the Oracle JDK to another OpenJDK distribution. Naturally, this decision comes with a certain level of trepidation. How easy is it to switch to a different JDK? How much time will it take? How much will it cost? Are there any situations where we can’t change the JDK?
We’ve Updated Our Guide to Successful OpenJDK Migration
To address these questions and many more related ones, we wrote a book: OpenJDK Migration for Dummies. To be fair, it’s not for dummies – that’s the very popular series of books, which is targeted at making what might seem complicated and daunting subjects approachable and providing clear, concise information. Azul has provided this as a free PDF download on our website, and at various conferences we’ve given away paper copies.
We distilled years of experience working with our customers into 74 A5 pages. We also divided it into sections so that you didn’t need to read it from cover to cover, but can select the relevant chapters to plan and execute your migration as simply and efficiently as possible.
That was, however, three years ago, and, as we know, the world of software moves at an ever-increasing pace. To that end, we’ve decided it’s time for an update. We’ve gone through the book and made sure that all the details are up to date, covering the changes associated with the most recent LTS versions of Java. We’ve made sure that the information about security vulnerabilities is up to date and that it includes the most recent details on deprecated and removed features.
As before, the new, improved version is completely free to download. Why not get your copy today?