Terrible take. Photoshop does not create and exploit confusion about how their products are free to use as much as Oracle does with Java. Photoshop also didn't sneakingly change terms from what used to be free without a proper notice while installing. Photoshop sales and marketing also don't do gotchas with crazy audits and threats of lawsuits.

> Photoshop also didn't sneaking change terms from what used to be free

Like making it even more free? You are literally free to use the “paid” OracleJDK on its latest LTS release up until the next LTS comes around+1 year.

The reference is to a previous licensing change, which made it less free, with Oracle shaking down groups using the Oracle JDK. They've changed their terms before and could do so again with future releases.

The JDK is GPLv2, which means it can be legally redistributed without charge. Oracle puts their JDK release under a different license. Microsoft distributes the binaries under the GPL. It’s the same code going into the binary, but different license terms.

OpenJDK (maintained by Oracle) is GPL, but Oracle JDK is a different codebase with different features under a commercial license. Oracle's OpenJDK builds are distributed under the GPL, like Microsoft's.

You would be right, if you would have made this comment a bit more than a decade ago.

The only remaining differences between OracleJDK and OpenJDK are logo, and trivial things - Oracle has opened up everything else.

As far as I'm aware, Oracle JDK gets fixes that OpenJDK doesn't, and is under a commercial license that's not GPL (even if it's free-as-in-beer under certain circumstances)? Is that wrong?

Oracle provides their builds for free, given you use their latest LTS release. But that’s apples to oranges comparison - that is an actual support release, meant for big enterprises that wants to point their fingers at someone on Christmas eve.

Right. So that’s the minefield, no? If you download from Oracle, it’s like Photoshop from Adobe. If you download from Amazon, it’s like gcc. But it’s the same software: near invisible difference.

So that’s why you shouldn’t download from Oracle.

Are you a huge enterprise system that has to be able to call someone on some national holiday at 2AM? If no, then just do whatever you want - I don’t understand running to Amazon, when you can just do `apt install openjdk`, but whatever. There is way too much fuss around this non-issue. It’s the exact same software plus-minus a few bytes.

Ubuntu LTS does not have modern JDK. Amazon has Coretto distribution. Much better.