Oracle Criticized Over Price Change for New Oracle Java SE Licenses

While Oracle's existing Java corporate licensing agreements are still in effect, "the Named User Plus Licensing (user licenses) and Processor licenses (server licensing) are no longer available for purchase," reports IT World Canada. And that's where it gets interesting: The new pricing model is based on employee count, with different price tiers for different employee counts. The implication is that everyone in the organization is counted for licensing purposes, even if they don't use Java software. As a result, companies that use Java SE may face significant price increases. The change will primarily affect large companies with many employees, but it will also have a significant impact on medium-sized businesses. Although Oracle promises to allow legacy users to renew under their current terms and conditions, sources say the company will likely pressure users to adopt the new model over time. The move is "likely to rile customers that have a fraction of employees who work with Java," Oracle partners told CRN, though "the added complexity is an opportunity for partners to help customers right-size their spending."Jeff Stonacek, principal architect at House of Brick Technologies, an Omaha, Neb.-based company that provides technical and licensing services to Oracle clients, and chief technical officer of House of Brick parent company OpsCompass, told CRN that the change has already affected at least one project, with his company in the middle of a license assessment for a large customer. He called the change "an obvious overstep." "Having to license your entire employee count is not reasonable because you could have 10,000 employees, maybe only 500 of them need Java," Stonacek said. "And maybe you only have a couple of servers for a couple of applications. But if you have to license for your entire employee count, that just doesn't make sense...." Stonacek and his team have been talking to customers about migrating to Open Java Development Kit (JDK), a free and open-source version of Java Standard Edition (SE), although that was a practice started before the price change. He estimated that about half of the customers his team talks to are able to easily move to OpenJDK. Sometimes, customers have third-party applications that are written for Java and unchangeable as opposed to custom applications that in-house engineers can just rewrite.... Ron Zapar, CEO of Naperville, Ill.-based Oracle partner Re-Quest, told CRN that even without a direct effect on partners from the Java license change, the move makes customers question whether they want to purchase Oracle Cloud offerings and other Oracle products lest they face future changing terms or lock-in.

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