Ready And Prepared for Oracle JAVA Subscriptions?

effective January 2019 ORACLE HAS ANNOUNCED THAT Java SE 8 public updates will no longer be available  for "Business, Commercial or Production use" without a commercial license.

What does this mean to your organisation?

... For Commercial Users (being those "entities other than Oracle Customers that use Java SE for free for business, commercial or production purposes as part of a Java application delivered by a third party or developed internally" Oracle will not post further updates of Java SE 8 to its public download sites after January 2019. If you need continued access to critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 8 or previous versions you'll need a long term support subscription through Oracle Java SE Advanced Desktop, or Oracle Java SE Suite. 

Of course if Java is licensed for use under another Oracle or other third-party license you are exempt. You'd be entitled to ask - what exactly is Oracle's justification for this new charge, well simply put their contention is captured in this statement: 

"As the main contributor and steward of Java SE, Oracle is the only company that can guarantee long-term support and updates on a timely and predictable schedule. The Java SE Subscription from Oracle provides access to tools that consistently manage updates, enables enterprises to monitor their own Java platforms, and provides direct access to a specialized Java SE support team"

Where to next? ... What do I need to do??

Assuming you have broad use of Java SE like most organisations - noting the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) and Oracle Java SE Advanced and Suite products are currently shipping from Oracle in the form of the Java Development Kit (JDK), and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) - you'll need to inventory your entire software landscape to identify what installations you have, under what license. For those that aren't captured by an over-arching entitlement you will need to assess the level of support and currency you are willing to operate.

Put simply, that all means:

1. If you're comfortable with rolling through six-monthly updates you can do so for free - there will be no additional requirement;
2. but if you're not, you're going to need to purchase a subscription.
   

And what's that all going to cost? ... Well ​the latest Oracle Technology Global Price List (June 19, 2018) states the following under Fusion Middleware:

... however the literature surrounding the Subscriptions appears to indicate a more reasonable cost profile:

So with January 2019 looming the priority needs to be getting full clarity of your position:

• what do I have deployed?
• whats covered by Oracle or other third-party product licensing?
• what do I need to do with those installations that aren't?

... and then quantify what that might cost.

It would be fair to predict that Oracle will no doubt scrutinise this space at some point in the near future ... best to be prepared.

... and that's where Software Compliance and our ComplianceWare tool can help ...