[OSM-talk] Oracle is changing Java's license how will it affect JOSM?

[john whelan]

JAVA started as a SUN product.  It is now an Oracle product.  I spent a
number of years working with Oracle on license for their databases.  A
number of sales people's statements about their licensing were dubious and
inconsistent so I'll admit I am slightly bias.

Having said that if we look at the requirements then we'd like the ability
to run on UNIX and Windows.  Apple are their own world and yes it can be
run but Apple don't especially like you running it.

We'd like to be able to run the software on corporate machines.  These days
many companies follow the US government's lead and say JAVA is too much of
a security risk to be allowed to install it.

We have a lot of existing code and programmers who know JAVA.  We have a
lot of existing JOSM users which means lots of tutorials and
documentation.  Any changes to the interface will be expensive in people
time.

Pure JAVA is interpreted, the translation for lay people is it needs a more
powerful computer to do the same work in the same time.

I have no instant solutions but I do think sometimes we should try to think
things through in advance.  Perhaps the biggest concern is a major security
hole opens up and Oracle will not repair it.  JAVA is not known to be
highly secure at the best of times.  If this happens what is the impact?

It can be controlled to some extent in Windows by running in a separate
user account but that too complicated for many of our users to configure.
Do we have any responsibility to our mappers to keep their machines safe?

Dunno which is why its worth raising the matter.

Cheerio John

On 22 April 2018 at 15:34, Jan Martinec <jan at martinec.name> wrote:

> End of Java _8_, not all Java. Java 9 is already out, this is just a
> version upgrade. So far, I have used JOSM on Java 6, Java 7, Java 8 and
> Java 9 - this only means that ancient installations of JOSM will only work
> with an older version of JOSM. (It's still possible to run JOSM build 10526
> on Java 7. Source: having done just that, yesterday).
>
> No action required w/r/t JOSM, relax.
> Cheers,
> Jan "Piskvor" Martinec
>
> Dne ne 22. 4. 2018 21:05 uživatel john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
> napsal:
>
>> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html
>>
>> It needs to be translated into English.  For example Long Term Support
>> means no new versions per three years.
>>
>> " Basically, free Java 8 updates for commercial customers, such as game
>> developers, will cease in January 2019. After that date commercial
>> customers must have a licence to continue to receive the updates.
>>
>> Free Java 8 updates for non-commercial uses, such as your home PC, will
>> continue until the end of 2020.
>>
>> As of last September Oracle have moved to a LTS (Long Term Support) model
>> for Java with new LTS versions released every 3 years - the current Java 8
>> was released Sept 2017 so December 2020 will be the end of a three year LTS
>> cycle. "
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>> On 22 April 2018 at 14:40, Mateusz Konieczny <matkoniecz at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 14:26:13 -0400
>>> john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Someone who worked at Oracle has mentioned Oracle would like to be
>>> > out of JAVA by 2020 and that is the date for individual free licenses
>>> > to expire.
>>>
>>> Source?
>>>
>>
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