back to article Just one Corretto, give it to me... AWS brews its own blend of Java with free long-term support

Amazon may be working to rid itself of Oracle database software, but the box-and-bit shifting biz can't get enough of Oracle's coffee-themed programming technology, Java. To be fair, Java belongs to everyone. Not the name. Oracle still owns the Java trademark. Use it at your peril. But the open source implementation of the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Ahhh..... if we Italians...

    ... had trademarked coffee type names....

    1. Shaha Alam

      Re: Ahhh..... if we Italians...

      ...and if only those sufi Yemeni arabs had patented their coffee bean brewing process all those hundreds of years ago...

      1. steelpillow Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Ahhh..... if we Italians...

        Never mind, I shall patent them both in the US anyway and then auction off the patents to the deepest-pocketed troll company.

    2. cmaurand

      Re: Ahhh..... if we Italians...

      C like names, too. C#

      Microsoft's implemenation of Java.

      Cheers

  2. cat_mara
    Joke

    Garbage collection supported?

    "BREAKING NEWS: Beta users of Amazon's off-brand not-Java Corretto were last night disturbed to learn that the language does not feature garbage collection.

    "A touted feature of the language since its inception in the 90s, garbage collection automatically reclaims Java objects when they no longer referenced, freeing developers from micro-managing storage lifetimes and avoiding the hard-to-find memory leaks that often plagues code written in languages like C and C++, according to its proponents.

    "However, users running their Java programs under the Corretto runtime found that they eventually ran out of memory and crashed.

    "'We regard garbage collection as something akin to a software bathroom break,' an Amazon spokesperson declared, 'and therefore bad for productivity. So we decided not to include this feature in our implementation of not-Java.'

    "Instead, Amazon have instead proposed that objects 'ask their manager' if they can go to the garbage collector in much the same way as their warehouse employees have to ask to use the bathroom. This will be implemented as a new function, Foreman Request Excretory Excursion or free() for short, to be implemented as a new method on the java.lang.Object class.

    "More news as we get it...

  3. HmmmYes

    What do you call Java running in the cloud?

    . . .

    Shit

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Middleware, the last time I looked. Pretty much a "meh!" here, I define Java as "C++ on LSD" but this setup would be nice for someone like myself that doesn't want to take care of upgrades, especially tracking those. Ditto .NET on Microsoft's bit barns.

    2. Oengus

      What do you call Java running in the cloud?

      A miracle... FTFY

  4. devTrail

    Not correct

    "It's doing so because Oracle earlier this year announced that it will no longer offer free long-term support for OpenJDK after January 2019"

    But this is not true. The same announcement linked within this sentence has been distorted.

    1. It's just me

      Re: Not correct

      It's close enough, My understanding from reading the linked Oracle document is that after Jan 2019 all the users in my company will not be able to get security updates for their java 8 runtimes for free. So Amazon providing their builds for free sounds attractive to me.

      1. devTrail

        Re: Not correct

        "It's close enough, My understanding ..."

        Your understanding tells me that you are not commenting the content of the announcement either.

        The curious thing is that all of you assume that nobody will open the link to check the facts.

        1. It's just me

          Re: Not correct

          Quoting the Oracle announcement : "Once a Java SE version reaches “End of Public Updates”, any further updates will be available only to Customers and accessible through My Oracle Support and via corporate auto update where applicable" ... "Oracle will continue to provide Public Updates and auto updates of Java SE 8, until at least the end of December 2020 for Personal Users, and January 2019 for Commercial Users." ... "Java SE 8 Commercial User End of Public Updates - January 2019"

          compared to the article's "Amazon will distribute security updates to Corretto 8 at no cost until at least June, 2023"

          1. devTrail

            Re: Not correct

            "Quoting the Oracle announcement "

            This is a little bit better, at least you restricted the claim that Oracle will end Public support from the whole JDK to version 8. You avoided to mention that version 11 will be LTS. You avoided to mention that that version 8 will still have non commercial support via the OpenJDK, but at least you narrowed down the scareware.

  5. FozzyBear
    Devil

    Rather it's a no cost distribution of OpenJDK for AWS customers and anyone else who wants it.

    RRiighht. Sure it is, right up to the point that it reaches a critical mass of users who are hooked in. Then watch how nominal charges are introduced to "help" maintain and support the system.Soon you're paying through the nose, or you wish you were

  6. Smartypantz

    Suicide move by Oracle

    I truly have never seen, so much, being squandered so fast, by so few, as the Oracle acquisition of java!

    They have had an opportunity to develop an "ecosystem" around java, their cloud and their other software offerings. They could have used java to ease the path to an Oracle future (Shudder..).

    They have had the chance to really make java pay off, something that sun never succeeded in. It seems like they never even tried after the acquisition. Seen from the outside it looks like utter stupidity?!

    Now this licensing move?? They have given up, and are on a suicide mission!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AWS giving something back to OSS

    .... I spat out my coffee when I read this.

    This can mean only one thing, the cold war between Larry Overseer and Jeff Over-seller is about to turn hot.

  8. LorraineEstep

    I am sure that most of you know about how to deal with developers, but I guess you will be needing aws consulting. It provides the best things that you can need and will help you a lot.

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