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by icedchai 165 days ago
I worked at a couple of startups that were mostly Java based and had several CLI tools. The focus was building "fat jars" then running them with "java -jar ...", or running scripts that did that. The Java VM was a system dependency and getting it baked into the binary just wasn't a practical concern.
1 comments
vips7L 165 days ago
I work at a startup that ships a Java cli to our clients. It is a giant pain in the butt. There are constant support requests from users that are using the wrong version of Java, too old or too new. Sometimes they have to wait weeks for authorization to even install the Java runtime. IT departments are extremely strict about installing Java.
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icedchai 165 days ago
I could see how that could be annoying. My experience was with internal apps whee we managed all the infrastructure. Some IT departments are often extremely strict about installing anything. Some won't even let you access a web site without it being proxied through something like ZScaler.
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vips7L 165 days ago
Yeah after we got bought our own IT department wouldn't let me use ngrok even though engineering was paying for licensing for it.
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duskwuff 165 days ago
> IT departments are extremely strict about installing Java.

Understandably so, given that some Java runtimes (most notably, Oracle's) require a paid license for commercial use. Having users installing that can get the company in hot water.

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newsoftheday 165 days ago
Until 2021, now some do require a paid license for commercial use and some Java versions from Oracle can be used for free for commercial use.

Or do what the rest of the world does, use Eclipse Adoptium (the best JDK in my opinion) or the one from OpenJDK, Microsoft, etc.

You and the parent raising the specter of Oracle's Java licensing isn't applicable any more. It isn't 2009.

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duskwuff 164 days ago
The point is, there are legal complexities which make it unsafe for an employee to go out on their own and download a JRE - sure, they might download Adoptium and be fine, but they also might download one of the ones which requires a commercial license. An IT department isn't going to be comfortable with that risk.
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