Should I obtain a licence from Oracle before developing Java software? I'm in the preliminary planning stages of developing a server on top of the the Hadoop/Java platforms.
I'm not much at all worried about the Hadoop side, but the "process" for developing on top of the Java VM is somewhat ambiguous. I was in the process of setting up the JVM on FreeBSD, when I saw that we are only licensed to use it for "personal use".
So I thought hmm, what's the situation over in Linux Land? It was even more ambiguous there, and I wasted about an hour on Usenet looking for the answer.
Let me clarify my question. I don't care about OpenJDK and much less so interested in fighting Oracle in court (no relation), I'm interested more in Oracle's policy towards "Indie" Java developers and by "Indie" I mean a small house of developers under a sole-proprietorship/llc. with no legal team.
To be even extra clear, I want to stay on Oracle's good side so if/when my product becomes a success that I don't have to give up the majority of my revenue, or worse, incorporate for quick cash or worse, file bankruptcy and throw away 10 years of work/maintenance.
I'm sorry but their legal license is full of double-talk and ambiguous "legal" terms that could mean pretty much anything. I apologize again if this is common knowledge, I come from a C/C++ background and have only been considering Java recently now that the it's becoming the definitive language for distributed computing.
