>Yes, nothing new here. Oracle will stop free updates to LTS [1], and users of Java will need to either stay on the bleeding edge releases or pay for LTS.

Well, that's a NEW development. And a major one at that.

Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN).

They might still do that, with OpenJDK, but not with Oracle releases anymore.

Not really, you had to have an Oracle account to have access to legacy JDKs and sign an agreement that you were aware of the security issues of relying on outdated releases.

What they are doing is stepping up the challenge of insisting in e.g. using Java 1.4 in 2018 (Yes I do know a few such cases).

It's not new at all. It's not economical for anyone to provide general engineering support for any JDK for all time. People aren't up in arms that JDK 1.1 isn't being supported.

Companies who won't shift of a JDK know this, that's why they pay for the privilege. They pay Oracle, or they pay someone to support an OpenJDK like Red Hat.

>It's not new at all. It's not economical for anyone to provide general engineering support for any JDK for all time. People aren't up in arms that JDK 1.1 isn't being supported.

It's new for Java.

We don't care, for the purposes of the discussion, if it has been how things are since forever at SomeOtherProductOrLanguage.

We're not taking about the relative novelty of this release model (or its merits), but about how things are different now for Java releases.

Oracle did this for 7 and I believe 6 as well. Java 8's time ran out, it was as simple as that.

Nope, it's a new announcement. This is not about 8 running out either, it's about 9 (and onwards) having a few months update cycles (and Oracle updates and security patches).

Previously that was years on end.

I was confused by everyone focusing on 8.

> Companies used to be able to rely on the same version of Java for years AND get security etc updates, without paying Oracle (and before that, SUN).

People have already had years of support for Java 8 including support updates. By 2019 they will have had five years of it. Nothing's changed.

As you said: "People have already had years of support for Java 8 including support updates".

What's changed is that this wont be the case anymore for 9, 10, 11, and so on.

Plus, after 9, each new release will be out in 3-6 months (can't remember which) instead of years. And support for the previous n-1 release will end in the same day.

Plus, despite their frequency they'll have major language changes (whereas usually Java did much smaller scale changes + full backwards compatibility).

Thanks for clarifying that. So, if businesses always update in a timely way to the latest release there is no charge, right?

It is a pain to update huge systems to the latest Java, latest version of Haskell’s compiler and libraries, move to Python 3, etc., etc. but there is also a real cost to long term support for old software, I am especially thinking of important security updates.

Or get an JDK from Azul or RedHat or another JDK provider e.g. IBM. All it says if you want to get a new Oracle JDK 8 once JDK11 is out you will need to pay, if one gets it from somewhere else ask them not Oracle.

Will it be possible to download the current version of Java 8 JDK which is currently free? Or will all existing downloads also disappear behind a paywall?