Canonical Reverse Java Uninstall Decision

By , Published January 19, 2012

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Canonical have reversed their decision to remove Java from Ubuntu users’ machines.

Oracle, the owners of Sun Java, retired the ‘distributor license’ that allows operating system vendors to provide the package to users in August of last year. This change in terms forced Ubuntu’s security board to announce that it would be removing Sun JDK package from its ‘Partner‘ repository, and ‘upgrading’ the official Java release on Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 with an ‘empty’ package, thus disabling it. as a ‘security measure’.

Ubuntu have now decided against the latter action to ‘prevent unexpected failures’ on users installations.

“The Sun JDK packages will remain installed on current systems with no further security updates. On new systems, it will no longer be possible to install the packages from the partner archive. “

Sun JDK packages will be removed from the Ubuntu partner archive on February 16th 2012, after-which they will no longer be available to install through the Ubuntu Software Centre or Synaptic Package Manager.

Because no further security updates will be issued  for Sun Java on Ubuntu users who don’t rely on the official package are being urged to swap over to alternatives, such as the Oracle-endorsed OpenJDK.

The change in license does not affect availability of Sun Java for Linux only the permission for OSs to distribute it. Oracle’s Sun Java can be downloaded and manually installed from the Oracle website. Lazy users can use the solution provided by Ubuntu user Martin Wimpress.

Via ubuntu security mailing list

Related posts:

  1. Sun Still Shines for Java Users on Ubuntu [Updated]
  2. Java To Be Removed from Ubuntu, Uninstalled from User Machines
  3. Canonical Seek To Allay Windows 8 ‘Secure Boot’ Fears
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  • Tristan Cormier

    First!

    • Anonymous

      Cool story, bro.

      • http://www.facebook.com/zeroangel David Bobb

        Brool story, co

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FD5M7R6NP7VXXFS4FHYYAGCHPM James

          Stool corny, yo

    • Bilal Akhtar

      Fail.

  • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/TheMerkinman Merk

    Why is this, and that decision to upgrade Firefox for LTS users, both February? Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait until April for the next LTS?

    • Fabio Giaffaglione

      Why do you use Chrome instead? In this way you won’t have more problems.

      • Chad Germann

        Because some people may not like Chrome

      • https://launchpad.net/~danillo Danillo

        Maybe because Chrome is a proprietary software stuffed with Google spyware that sells informations about your whole life, while Firefox is FOSS developed by a non-profit whose mission is to fight for a free Internet?

        • http://profiles.google.com/l33ts0n Arron Washington

          You left out some critical details, like for instance the fact that Chrome’s ToS gives Google legal ownership of your first-born.

    • http://jeremy.bicha.net/ Jeremy Bicha

      Anyone using the Java from the Ubuntu partners repository is using an outdated Java with known security vulnerabilities so waiting a few more months isn’t a good plan.

      • Anonymous

        Just wondering will the users that already have installed Sun Java on machine be informed that there software is no longer updated from repository. Probably not. It looks like on Linux we need something like http://www.filehippo.com for Windows – a program that checks if all of the software is up to date. I know this should be a package manager main job, but because on LTS releases a lot of software gets out of maintenance it would be nice to have such a system – maybe implemented as diff from the latest stable release.

    • Christopher Patrick

      Mozilla cut the plug for 3.6 on January 31st, so that is why the upgrade to Firefox is happening and Canonical decided February for Java

  • AJ

    Seems unprofessional to me to backtrack on a decision like this. If security is a genuine risk, then why not offer openjdk as part of the default installation for 12.04 LTS? Unless it is less reliable and/or could be seen to reduce end-user freedom of choice. 

    • http://twitter.com/Azthma Azthma

      OpenJDK still has hel of bugs and sometimes doesn’t even work for some applications designed around Sun JDK.

    • Anonymous

      OpenJDK will make the disk size flow over the limit the team set.

      • http://profiles.google.com/kurt.bruneau Kurt Bruneau

        Why does it matter, it’s not based on the size of a CD now

        • Anonymous

          Still, they don’t want the team (or whoever) putting too much crap and other nonsense into the CD and get too happy with the size.

      • AJ

        I thought that the extra 50mb buffer set was for wriggle space, but that the likely size was still up for growth at 12.04

    • Anonymous

      Sun java 6 isn’t in 11.10 or 12.04. But is in older releases.

  • Nick Rutledge

    This is a good decision by Canonical fo sho ;)

  • Anonymous

    Tristan, Grow up!

    • http://twitter.com/Azthma Azthma

      At least he had to write something constructive. Let’s suppose he was drunk. Wake up Tristan.
      Anyway, I confirm that OpenJDK is still buggy and I recommend to use Sun JDK available in Oracle’s website instead of the package from repos!

      • https://launchpad.net/~alci alci

        Hi,

        would you elaborate on OpenJDK buggyness ?
        For my part, the main problem I had was with packaging, OpenJDK not seeing some fonts used by JasperReport to generate graphics (via JFreeChart).

        Other than that, I never encountered any particular problem (running daily Eclipse, Tomcat, Jetty, several jdbc drivers, mondrian Olap, Jsp, etc…)

        So, what is buggy in OpenJDK ?

        Thanks

  • http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks

    Smart move, Canonical.

  • Carl lal

    “Lazy users can use the solution provided by Ubuntu user Martin Wimpress.”  Just cuz we take do it the easy way doesn’t mean that were lazy we save time by doing it this way. EASY != LAZY

    • Anonymous

      And there is also a PPA for Sun Java which is  even more lazy.  :)
      Why do anyone drive a car, use bicycle, don’t be lazy. Just wake up 3 hours earlier to get to job instead of just half an hour, don’t be lazy… I agree if something is simpler to do is not a lazier. And pleaseeeeeeeeee stop using computers, don’t be lazy just do all the staff on paper, manually, don’t be lazy. ;)

  • http://twitter.com/oliverrichard47 Richard Oliver

    Surely this is too little too late? Sun was cut from my distro immediately, haven’t looked back since!

  • Anonymous

    Since Oracle themselves have stated that their future releases will be based on openJDK, i hope they devote some time on it and iron out bugs so that existing applications can switch over seamlessly. Java is cumbersome and a resource hog, but is still a great language with great potential. Oracle please dont let java lose its viability on the desktop.

  • http://profiles.google.com/bwat47 Brandon Watkins

    I don’t even install java anymore. Have no use for it.

    • http://xoox.myopenid.com/ xoox

      The Java Runtime Environment is included in every Ubuntu installation. Otherwise LibreOffice would not work.

      • Anonymous

        Wrong , LIbreoffice works without Java . Java is just an optional component and why in the world would canonical waste 70mb space for java anyway?

    • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

      I use it to play puns on old, polish game website’s. That the only use for it. I’m sure I could replace it with something from one of the Google stores though.

  • Chad Germann

    So Canonical makes a decision that is postie for the enterprise

    lets mark this Down in the calender as it is a red letter day.

  • Benjamin

    Hurray!

  • https://launchpad.net/~k1l k1l

    Thanks to the censorchip and commerce shouting idiots m(
    This is the worst solution. The regular user will still think he gets support from Ubuntu for Java and will not realise that its not in the repositories anymore.

  • http://www.facebook.com/zeroangel David Bobb

    I don’t understand. Why doesn’t Canonical just make the Oracle/Sun Java package into a transitional package that has OpenJDK as a dependency? Since pulling extra packages requires a dist-upgrade, the user will have some advance warning that it’s happening and could optionally take steps to install Oracle Java proper (which would not pull OpenJDK as a dependency).

    • Anonymous

      Unfortunately, all Java programs don’t work with OpenJDK (I don’t think one can do Android develpment without Sun’s Java 6) , hopefully this will be remedied since OpenJDK will soon be the official JDK!

  • aperson

    Why can’t there be a package for java like there is for flash (ie: one that downloads the actual files from the distributor’s website)?

  • Giovanni Escobar Sosa

    I just found in http://blog.flexion.org/2012/01/16/install-sun-java-6-jre-jdk-from-deb-packages/ a way to update java making a LOCAL PPA from the binaries of Oracle. It was a little slow, but the script works like a charm.

  • Jeremy Brown

    I think people should go learn the difference between the JDK and the JRE before they comment here. JDK is for developers. JRE is for users.

 
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