
Personal use means running Oracle products on the desktop or laptop that belongs to an individual and is solely under their control. To understand the intricacies of Java licensing changes, first, let’s explore the difference between personal use and commercial use.


Although this change in theory made Java free for commercial use again, in reality the situation was not so simple.īut the Oracle Sales Team is up and doing. Starting with version 17, Oracle JDK is distributed under the “Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions” (NFTC) license. In 2021, Oracle introduced a new LTS release schedule (every two years instead of three) and changed the licensing policy again.

As free public updates for Java 8 (still the most popular version amongst developers) were no longer provided, companies had to pay for commercial support or look for a substitution for Oracle Java. The world of Java development was shaken in 2019 when Oracle changed the licensing policy for JDK 8.
