Further clarifying its ongoing support plans for Java SE (Standard Edition) 8, Oracle will require businesses to have a commercial license to get updates after January 2019.

In an undated bulletin about the revision, Oracle said public updates for Java SE 8 released after January 2019 will not be available for business, commercial, or production use without a commercial license. However, public updates for Java SE 8 will be available for individual, personal use through at least the end of 2020.

End of public updates for Java 8

Oracle advises enterprises to review the Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap to assess support requirements to migrate to a later release or obtain a commercial license. Customers who use Java SE as part of another Oracle product can continue to access Java SE 8 for those products beyond 2019 for those products. Oracle advises developers to review roadmaps for Java SE 8 and beyond and take appropriate action based on their application and its distribution model.

Previously, Oracle decided to extend public updates for JDK 8, the development kit for Java SE 8, until at least January 2019, after having originally planned to end them this September. JDK 8 debuted in March 2014. Oracle released JDK 9 in September 2017 and JDK 10 last month, moving to a six-month release schedule. JDK 11 is due in September 2018.

Where to download Java SE

You can download Java SE from the Oracle Technology network.