Moving Forward to OpenJDK

If you do not know, Oracle removed the DLJ license from its closed-source JDK implementation some months ago (Java7 was born without the license and Java6 removed it in U29). The Operating System Distributor License for Java (DLJ) was a Sun initiative to facilitate the distribution of the JDK/JRE with operating systems based on OpenSolaris or Linux, in general that license let the distros to repackage, distribute and use the JDK.

The reasons why Oracle removed that license were controversial. Some people thought that Oracle was definitely pushing forward the OpenJDK adoption and others saw dark maneuvers in this change. For one reason or another the truth is Debian (and all the rest of linux distributions) is starting the transition from sun-java6-* to openjdk-6-* packages. In my humble opinion OpenJDK is a very good virtual machine and both implementations, OpenJDK and Oracle closed-source JDK, have a lot in common (Joe Darcy talked about this issue last summer in the OSCON convention). As you already know the only big difference for end-users and developers is the Java Web Plugin, I wrote before an entry about this particular issue, commenting the story and the problems of OpenJDK related to the web-plugin implementation.

I am on vacation right now and I was requested to encrypt my working laptop long time ago (because of security reasons and company procedures), so today I have re-installed my box. Now dual boot linux/windows is not allowed and, in general, the recommended linux setup was so different to the one I had that I have preferred to wipe it out. Actually this is the first time I have an only debian installation. As a collateral effect I have decided to move forward with java (I think it is the correct time cos I have been finishing all my current projects), openjdk-6-jdk (with icedtea plugin of course) is now my default java implementation. I also think that it is a quite early to start with openjdk-7-jdk, I will wait till U2 or U4 arrive to wheezy.

I hope I do not need to install Oracle JDK back again, I really hate installing tar bundles in my Debian boxes.

OpenJDK is here to stay!