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  • Oracle's Grasp on Java is Weakening

In the latest Azul’s “Oracle Java Usage, Pricing and Migration” survey, a lot of interesting findings went into light about how businesses demand on Oracle’s Java is weakening.

To understand the situation you should have a bit of a background on Java and how it is released.

After Oracle bought Sun in 2009, it became the main authority on releasing OpenJDK; Java’s open-source reference implementation that is licensed under GPL license. This is basically the language reference of Java, and each new version contains new features and changes.

Since the reference is open-source, then any company can modify it and build their own binary JRE and JDK versions of it to provide customizations, support and enterprise services to anyone else.

In other words, any company [or person] can create their own Java binaries that are capable of running Java code on any system.

This is why we have many companies that provide their own binaries for OpenJDK, such as Red Hat, IBM, Azul, and of course Oracle itself.

It is no hidden fact that Oracle has been greedy in increasing their prices for their own Java JDK many times over the years. The Azul report quoted earlier mentions that:

In January 2023, Oracle changed its Java pricing and/or licensing model for the fourth time in four years. Under the latest rules, businesses pay based on the number of employees – including part-time workers and contractors – rather than for the amount of Java they use, where they use it, or the number of named users in their organization.

Because of that, companies all over the world have been migrating lately in an increasing trend towards other JDK alternatives, away from Oracle’s own products.

Azul’s survey included 660 Java professionals all over the world, and these were their responses on how their companies are dealing with Oracle’s Java situation.

Key findings in the report include:

  • 86% of respondents said they are migrating away from Oracle’s Java licenses.
  • Out of these, 53% are doing it because of Oracle’s costs and 38% due to uncertainty in pricing and policy changes by Oracle.
  • 66% said that Oracle’s Java licensing is more expensive than alternatives.
  • 84% said that their migrating to the alternatives were easier than expected.

The key findings can be found in the following infographic:
https://i.imgur.com/iWRYaDk.jpeg

The following chart demonstrates respondents situation regarding Oracle’s Java and its alternatives:
https://i.imgur.com/Yq1gWzB.png

The full report can be downloaded from Azul’s website using the following link:

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