For those who came in late, in 2018 Oracle decided to charge for Oracle JDK production use.

Donald Smith, Senior Director of Product Management at Oracle, explained the reason for changing his mide was because: "Providing Oracle OpenJDK builds under the GPL was highly welcomed, but feedback from developers, academia, and enterprises was that they wanted the trusted, rock-solid Oracle JDK under an unambiguously free terms license, too. Oracle appreciates the feedback from the developer ecosystem and are pleased to announce that as of Java 17 we are delivering on exactly that request."

Smith said that the No-Fee Terms and Conditions license "includes commercial and production use" although the license does not seem to highlight this fact and stated that "redistribution is permitted as long as it is not for a fee".