Open JDK v.s. JDK SE

[andy5174]

What are the differences between Open-JDK/Icedtea and Oracle-JDK-SE? They are both free, aren't they?

 

[BrightCandle]

Depends on how you define free. The iced tea release is based on completely open code and you could modify it yourself and compile your changes. Oracle how releases a version that you don't pay for but you also can't compile because it depends on source and binaries they don't release.

One is decidedly freerer than the other in terms of fixing any problems you might encounter. The price of both is the same, 0.

 

[andy5174]

By "free", I meant free of charge$. Besides, I have no intention (or not pro enough to be precise) in modifying the Java source code. All I want to do is writing Java programs with GUI.

I have some more questions...

1. What are the major differences between Open-JDK and JDK-SE except the former being open source?

2. From Wikipedia,

IcedTea is a build and integration project for OpenJDK launched by Red Hat in June 2007.[1] The initial goal was to make the Java OpenJDK software which Sun Microsystems released as free software in 2007 usable without requiring any other software that is not free software and hence make it possible to add OpenJDK to Fedora and other Linux distributions that insist on free software. This was met and a version of IcedTea based on OpenJDK was packaged with Fedora 8 in November 2007.

Does this mean that Open-JDK (and JDK-SE) don't provide as many functions as the Icedtea unless you pay$?

3. Which one does most Java programmers use, Icedtea, Open-JDK or JDK-SE?

4. Which Java version is the current industry standard, 6 or 7?

5. Eclipse seems to be the most popular Java IDE, so I would like to use it. Which Eclipse is the most popular, "Eclipse Classic" or "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers"? p.s. I don't want to use NetBeans since it, according to others, supports more lazy-programming which is not good for Java beginners

Thank you!

 

[BrightCandle]

1. That it contains open source components. If there are differences it'll be minor ones (particular encoder/decoders for video and such).
2. OpenJDK in itself isn't usable for Linux, its incomplete. Sun only released some of the code and it couldn't be made into a real JVM without other binary parts. Icedtea implemented those parts using open source tools. You can't use openJDK directly.
3. Oracle's version is what professional developers use.
4. Anything from 1.4 upwards. 7 has a relatively small uptaking because its been very unstable, its had a lot of bugs so adoption has been quite slow so far.
5. You want the IDE for Java developers so that Eclipse can work with Java. Classic is just a shell of the IDE with no Java tools. There is nothing wrong with Netbeans, or IntelliJ for that matter, but for me the incremental compilation of Eclipse wins out for speed.

 

[andy5174]

1. That it contains open source components. If there are differences it'll be minor ones (particular encoder/decoders for video and such).
2. OpenJDK in itself isn't usable for Linux, its incomplete. Sun only released some of the code and it couldn't be made into a real JVM without other binary parts. Icedtea implemented those parts using open source tools. You can't use openJDK directly.

Sorry for the late reply...

So both OpenJDK and JDK-SE are incomplete? How much approximately does it cost for a complete JDK-SE package if there's one? Should I get the windows or linux version? Thank you.

 

[BrightCandle]

It doesn't cost anything for either JDK. OpenJDK simply refers to the open source components, it isn't directly a VM you use. Just use Oracle's version and stop worrying about it.

 

[andy5174]

It doesn't cost anything for either JDK. OpenJDK simply refers to the open source components, it isn't directly a VM you use. Just use Oracle's version and stop worrying about it.

ok... last question.... Oracle JDK-SE (Standard Edition) is feature-complete although it is very similar to OpenJDK, right?

Just want to make sure everything is ready before I start self-teaching Java. Thanks for all of your inputs!

 

[fread2281]

It doesn't cost anything for either JDK. OpenJDK simply refers to the open source components, it isn't directly a VM you use. Just use Oracle's version and stop worrying about it.

Icedtea is completely open and based on Oracle's OpenJDK.