People (including Ubuntu/Debian) seem to think that openJDK is just a bit slower and "less polished" but a fine drop in replacement. It has been my experience there is lot's of stuff it still just doesn't support.
The saddest and most obvious was last time I was helping a first year comp sci student they couldn't even do lab #1 in it since openjdk didn't have the fancy new output writers.
Sure you "don't need" them, and a bunch of other things it's missing, but those missing things quickly add up and start spelling lots of software that openJDK cannot run. And also first year comp sci students can't even use it for school.<p>It is not a drop in replacement that is a bit slower, it is incomplete and I'm tired of people not understanding this. There are things it cannot do and software it cannot run.
This will be a nuisance, because e.g. Clojure just works better with the Sun Java packages. The Sun packages don't just have performance improvements, but the Clojure devs seem to be actively targeting them. Even if this might lead to improvements to the OpenJDK in the long term it is one hell of a nuisance to have to go around the operating system package management scheme for Java. The lesson is to actively mistrust Oracle and invest more time in solutions that are independent from that company.
Check out fpm if you're concerned about packaging issues - <a href="https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm</a><p>It makes it incredibly easy to create an rpm/deb/etc. from a directory, rpm, npm, gem, python module, etc.<p>Here's a BayLISA video about it: <a href="http://vimeo.com/23940598" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/23940598</a>
Java-related Ubuntu/Debian packages (eclipse, openjdk, maven, ant, etc.) have always been notoriously bad and slow to update. Installing sun-java6-jdk sure made things easier but I guess I'll have to learn how to do it by hand now, just like I do with all the other Java-related software I use on Ubuntu every day.
This is unfortunate. We'd consistently get hit by a 100% CPU NIO bug by OpenJDK on Ubuntu. OpenJDK also packages Rhino in the org.mozilla package which makes it painful to use a different version of Rhino. It's definitely not a drop in replacement.
I often wondered if making the non-free stuff harder to use (Flash, Java, etc) will push free software devs to improve the free stuff. It might be good for Clojure and other Java projects to work towards having full control over their platform and distribution instead of having to rely on Oracle.
I wonder why Oracle changes that in the first place? Is it their attempt to compete with Red Hat on RHEL? Basically, this means enterprise users will have to move to Oracle's Unbreakable Linux. (Which, is ironically, based on RHEL)
From what I've read here:
<a href="http://robilad.livejournal.com/90792.html" rel="nofollow">http://robilad.livejournal.com/90792.html</a><p>"Linux users who prefer to use the thoroughly tested Oracle JDK 6 or Oracle JDK 7 binaries over OpenJDK builds packaged in their Linux distributions of choice can of course as usual simply get the gratis download at <a href="http://oracle.com/java" rel="nofollow">http://oracle.com/java</a> under the same terms as users on other platforms."<p>So it seems only like a license change, is that true?
When I tested Hadoop, the documentation suggested Sun JDK. Even Android asks for the Sun JDK. <a href="http://developer.android.com/sdk/requirements.html" rel="nofollow">http://developer.android.com/sdk/requirements.html</a> I hope all these communities take active effort in supporting OpenJDK henceforth.
I am irked by the author's response to a commenter. To paraphrase:<p>"Can't we just make an easy installer for Sun JDK?"
"No, we're just going to take this opportunity to make our own open source project better."<p>This sort of crap is why Linux is NOT ready for prime time.