Oracle Java 21 Release and its Impact on Java Licensing
In Brief:
Oracle Java SE 21 has now been released (press release here) meaning there is now only 1 year of no-cost updates to Oracle Java SE 17 left, after which future releases will be governed by the OTN License Agreement for Oracle Java SE (the same agreement which covers Oracle Java SE 8u211 through to Oracle Java SE 16) — and so you may (in October 2024) need to pay for continued use of version 17 not under the OTN agreement. You should move to Java SE 21 as soon as possible.
Oracle Java SE 11 (having been released 5 years ago) also enters Extended Support — allowing access to ongoing support and updates for no fee (this has been waived). This has been extended until 2032.
Detail
Today, 19 September 2023, Oracle has released Oracle Java SE 21 — normally this would hold no interest for those involved in Oracle licensing, however, the release of Java 21 has particular relevance which has an impact on earlier releases, specifically Oracle Java SE 17. Oracle Java SE 11 also transitions from Premier Support to Extended Support, with no sign of a waiver of the costs.
Oracle Java SE 17 was released in September 2021 under Oracle’s No Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) — see background here; this is very different to the OTN Java license agreement which is non-permissive (i.e. you likely need to pay unless you meet certain limitations).
The NFTC agreement is permissive and allows usage without commercial subscription: the ‘gotcha’ is that you receive three years of no-cost releases and only have one year to migrate between Oracle Java SE 17 and Oracle Java SE 21 without possible penalty.
Now that Oracle Java SE 21 is released, you have 1 year to migrate Oracle Java SE 17 to Oracle Java SE 21 without having to purchase a subscription.
In one year, any future updates to Java SE 17 (i.e. Java SE 17.0.13+) will be released under the OTN License Agreement for Oracle Java SE agreement — should this not cover your usage (e.g. production usage), you will need to have a commercial subscription in place (see this FAQ for more information).
You will be able to continue using 17.0.1 →17.0.12 under the original NFTC agreement beyond the October 2024 deadline.
Oracle Java SE 11 has entered Extended Support which Oracle have made available until January 2032 and has waived the associated fee.
The timeline for LTS releases of Oracle Java SE now looks as below.
Quite why Oracle is making the most modern versions of Oracle Java SE ‘no fee’ (for a period) whilst still charging for updates for older versions is not clear and perpetuates the complexity of licensing different versions and releases of Oracle Java SE.
Do you need a commercial subscription for Oracle Java SE?
Many organisations continue to ignore the requirement for an Oracle Java SE commercial agreement — this is not recommended! Oracle tracks downloads of all releases of Java SE and, although not a definitive way of determining if a subscription is required, the onus will be on licensees to prove their position.
Oracle Java SE licensing and whether a commercial license is needed is evaluated by a number of considerations, including Java version (e.g. Java 8) and update (e.g. 211) — to be clear, there are other evaluations to be made! The table further down in this article summarises this.
The table below summarises the license type by version, update and usage.
Conclusion
For those licensees keeping on modern and up-to-date versions of Oracle Java SE, there is now an impetus to upgrade to the next LTS within the next year if security patches and updates are required.
If you run Oracle Java SE 11, be aware that this is now covered by Oracle Extended Support, available until Jan 2032 with no additional fee.
Yet again, these changes add more confusion to an already complex licensing model for Oracle Java SE — it is hard for any organisation to maintain their view of their estate as well as the license/subscription requirements for such usage. As ever, please contact me or Version 1 if you have any questions.
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About The Author
Paul Bullen is a Principal Consultant with Oracle Licensing here at Version 1.
