Slashdot Mirror
Canonical To Remove Sun Java From Repositories, Users' Machines
New submitter an_orphan writes "Apparently, Oracle's 'Operating System Distributor License for Java' is expired, causing Ubuntu to not only remove sun-java from the partner repository, but from user's machines."
The difference is that automatic updates are optional for Ubuntu, so if you've turned them on you have already opted in to Canonical managing your system. This is especially true because in this case there are security reasons to remove the packages.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
From the article: "Oracle, in retiring the ‘Operating System Distributor License for Java’, means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package." So it's not that Oracle has lost their right to distribute Java (JDK) or something, but they are retiring the license Canonical is using that granted them the right to distribute it with Ubuntu. The summary also states (correctly) that Ubuntu will remove the sun-java package from the repository and user's machines, but does not state why: “Due to the severity of the security risk, Canonical is immediately releasing a security update for the Sun JDK browser plugin which will disable the plugin on all machines.” Ubuntu’s Marc Deslauriers wrote in a mail to the Ubuntu Security Mailing list. “This will mitigate users’ risk from malicious websites exploiting the vulnerable version of the Sun JDK.” Summarizing: there are two things going on here, one is that Oracle has revoked the license Canonical is using to distribute Java (JDK) freely so it will not come with Ubuntu anymore. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. Second: The java jdk package will be removed from user's computers because of severe security holes. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. So, two things, one article and one terrible summary.
Sensationalist headline is sensationalist.
Ubuntu will still have the OpenJDK, which is maintained in part by Oracle. "Sun Java" refers to a specific JVM installation.
Ubuntu uses OpenJDK Java by default. Users have for years had the option to switch out the default OpenJDK Java for an alternative package in the 3rd party repository which is Sun Java. That alternative is being removed. In fact, it has never been available in the latest Oneiric 11.10 release of ubuntu. In the latest release OpenJDK is the default & the only java available from the package repos.
Most people use OpenJDK on Ubuntu and for them this news means nothing.
If you're using an older release (11.04 or earlier) and you have sun-java installed, simply remove the package & install default-jdk. problem solved.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
Gentoo saw the license expiring, and did a proactive thing: flipped the "fetch restriction" flag back on, forcing users to pull it manually and slap it into the right place to install/upgrade.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
On Linux, most java developers consider that OpenJDK is the default implementation and that Sun JDK is more or less discontinued.
OpenJDK is a GPL release of Sun's code. It is the official Java (SE) implementation :
http://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/moving_to_openjdk_as_the
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Whoah. Tone down on the bitterness man. I wish I had some of your insight into the world - on second thoughts I'm glad I don't.
They've targeted customers who are either spending somebody else's money (mainly the children of the wealthy living off of "daddy's money" or trust funds), those who are financially foolish (people who buy useless gadgets on credit), and those seeking a modern religion (the so-called Apple fanatics)
Yeah - those are the *only* people who buy Apple gadgets. Those millions and millions of foolish people living off daddy's money. Damn them! Damn them to Hell!
This has let them put out sub-par products with pretty horrible limitations,
Yeah, those MacBook Airs are just *rubbish* man. I *totally* can't see why Intel is giving other notebook vendors $100m just to try and come up with a reasonable competitor
but they can still sell them outrageous prices, and coupled with third-world manufacturing it allows them to make a very sizable profit.
obviously Samsung (and by extension Google), Amazon, Motorola, HTC and the rest are *good* companies because the fact that they have to sell their stuff at half the price just to try and get people to buy one and therefore don't make a profit at all means that *their* exploration of third world labour is somehow alright?
TL;DR version: OMFG get off your high horse mr AC anti-apple troll.
While I love to bash on Ubuntu on every (reasonable and merited) opportunity available, and they certainly aren't scarce, this isn't one of them. As others have already pointed out, the packages were removed because Oracle will not license updates, and the latest distributable version has important security vulnerabilities. It would be irresponsible to keep the current packages in the distribution and illegal to update them.
More importantly, this move is exactly what Oracle wants done, and no, it's not any sort of evil move. Dalibor Topic explains in his blog the reasons behind this change in licensing: OpenJDK is (the basis of) the reference implementation for Java 7, and the Sun (now Oracle) JDK implementation is now (going to be) based on OpenJDK; the gratis, non-free licensing for the Sun (now Oracle) JDK was a temporary solution that's reached the end of its applicability:
It was always intended to be a temporary solution, and the final solution has always been migrating to OpenJDK. Yeah, it sucks, compatibility is far from complete, and things will break as a result of this move, but it's always been the plan, and it's not Canonical fucking it up this time. For reference, as one of the comments in TFA points out, Debian did it too.
In short: nothing to see here; move along. If this makes you lose sleep, maybe you shouldn't have used Java, and maybe you should migrate to something better.
It's being replace by OpenJDK. It was planned to happen like this for years. This was planned obsolescence with a gradual move to OpenJDK. Their is no surprise here except for those who didn't know it was coming. The summary is inflammatory but if you read the article you see that this is nothing really.
Well, you're going to have a problem in the future, because Oracle is replacing Sun's Java with OpenJDK. It's going to be the "real" java from now on. The summary, like usual, left this important fact out.
Don't worry dude, I know of a highly secretive website where you can get the java warez. Are your ready for it?
OK, here it is: java.com
Ta-dah! We'll show Oracle that they can't take their java away from us!