I was just catching up on email when I ran into this interesting tidbit:
As a user of java apps in the line of my work, this deeply annoys me. What few management java apps work well on Linux (it's always a surprise when something does), seem to work best with Oracle Java not OpenJDK..
It probably won't be just OpenSUSE affected by this.
Which is to say, Oracle is killing the license that allows OpenSUSE to provide Sun/Oracle Java as a part of the repo.
Up to now, openSUSE users had the choice of using openJDK (GPL with classpath exceptions) or Sun/Oracle's Java. The Sun/Oracle Java was licensed under the "Distributor's License for Java (DLJ)", which allowed Linux distributors to package and redistribute Sun/Oracle Java. Recently, Oracle announced that openJDK 7 is the new official reference implementation for Java SE7. They no longer see the need for the DLJ licensed Java implementation and so have retired that license.
openSUSE chooses to proceed with distributing the GPL licensed official reference implementation, openJDK. We will no longer distribute newer versions or updates of the now proprietary licensed Sun/Oracle JDK. Existing installations of the Sun/Oracle JDK are still licensed under the now retired DLJ.
openSUSE users who wish to continue using the Sun/Oracle JDK (including new versions thereof and updates) should now download directly from http://www.oracle.com/java. For now we keep the current sun-java packages (under the DLJ license) in the Java:sun:Factory project and will not update them anymore.
I suggest to document in the openSUSE wiki how to install the Sun/Oracle JDK version from Oracle under openSUSE.
As a user of java apps in the line of my work, this deeply annoys me. What few management java apps work well on Linux (it's always a surprise when something does), seem to work best with Oracle Java not OpenJDK..
It probably won't be just OpenSUSE affected by this.
Debian, for example:
http://sylvestre.ledru.info/blog/sylvestre/2011/08/26/sun_java6_packages_removed_from_debian_u
It may be annoying, but I think this is the correct approach. Since the Sun/Oracle JDK is maintained and provided by Oracle, the official download should be Oracle.
As a Mac user I have been bit by this as well, since Apple is going to stop developing the JDK themselves and work with Oracle to get Oracle to do it.