UK Universities Sign $13.3 Million Deal To Avoid Oracle Java Back Fees

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: UK universities and colleges have signed a framework worth up to 9.86 million pounds ($13.33 million) with Oracle to use its controversial Java SE Universal Subscription model, in exchange for a 'waiver of historic fees due for any institutions who have used Oracle Java since 2023.' Jisc, a membership organization that runs procurement for higher and further education establishments in the UK, said it had signed an agreement to purchase the new subscription licenses after consultation with members. In a procurement notice, it said institutions that use Oracle Java SE are required to purchase subscriptions. 'The agreement includes the waiver of historic fees due for any institutions who have used Oracle Java since 2023,' the notice said.

The Java SE Universal Subscription was introduced in January 2023 to an outcry from licensing experts and analysts. It moved licensing of Java from a per-user basis to a per-employee basis. At the time, Oracle said it was 'a simple, low-cost monthly subscription that includes Java SE Licensing and Support for use on Desktops, Servers or Cloud deployments.' However, licensing advisors said early calculations to help some clients showed that the revamp might increase costs by up to ten times. Later, analysis from Gartner found the per-employee subscription model to be two to five times more expensive than the legacy model.

'For large organizations, we expect the increase to be two to five times, depending on the number of employees an organization has,' Nitish Tyagi, principal Gartner analyst, said in July 2024. 'Please remember, Oracle defines employees as part-time, full-time, temporary, agents, contractors, as in whosoever supports internal business operations has to be licensed as per the new Java Universal SE Subscription model.' Since the introduction of the new Oracle Java licensing model, user organizations have been strongly advised to move off Oracle Java and find open source alternatives for their software development and runtime environments. A survey of Oracle users found that only one in ten was likely to continue to stay with Oracle Java, in part as a result of the licensing changes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.