Sun Java 1.6.0.30 packages for Ubuntu
Sun Java 6 packages are being removed from Ubuntu in the near future for the following reasons:
- As of August 24th 2011, Canonical no longer have permission to redistribute new Java packages as Oracle has retired the “Operating System Distributor License for Java”.
- Oracle has published an advisory about security issues in the version of Java currently in the partner archive. Some of these issues are currently being exploited in the wild.
- Due to the severity of the security risk, Canonical released a security update for the Sun JDK browser plugin which disables the plugin on all machines.
- In the near future, Canonical will remove all Sun JDK packages from the Partner archive. This will be accomplished by pushing empty packages to the archive, so that the Sun JDK will be removed from all users machines when they do a software update. Users of these packages who have not migrated to an alternative solution will experience failures after the package updates have removed Oracle Java from the system.
See the full Canonical notice below.
Update Monday 16th January 2012
I’ve developed another solution for installing Java 6u30 on Ubuntu which doesn’t infringe any copyrights, licenses, terms of use or CoC’s.
Update Friday 13th January 2012
My Java PPA has been disabled by Canonical, possibly because they violate the Ubuntu CoC and PPA terms of use, as Jef Spaleta noted in the comments below, although I’ve had no communication from Canonical at this time. I’m preparing an alternative solution, for those of you who need Sun Java 6, that doesn’t violate and copyrights, CoCs or terms of use. A new blog post will be made when that alternate solution is available.
My personal motivations for creating this PPA are as follows:
I require Sun Java 6 for two enterprise applications we use at work. OpenJDK is not fully compatible.I require Sun Java 6 for two desktop applications at home (so does my father-in-law). OpenJDK not compatible in one instance and not fully compatible in the other.I require Sun Java 6 browser plugin for a web applications I use at home. OpenJDK is not compatible.A friend of mine requires Sun Java 6 for building AOSP from source. OpenJDK is not compatible.Some friends of mine play Minecraft, apparently this will help
- Janusz Dziemidowicz made it easy for me – https://github.com/rraptorr/sun-java6
The PPA currently publishes Sun Java 6 1.6.0.30 for:
Lucid i386/amd64Maverick i386/amd64Natty i386/amd64Oneiric i386/amd64Precise i386. However, amd64 is failing to build on Precise. I will try and fix this in due course.
To Sun Java 6 , previously instaled via packages, do the following.
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
To install Sun Java 6 JRE do the following:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre
To install Sun Java 6 browser plugin do the following:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin
To install Sun Java 6 JDK do the following:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
You can take a look a round my PPA from the URL below:
Enjoy!
In: Linux · Tagged with: java, packages, sun-java6, Ubuntu
on January 11, 2012 at 9:55 pm
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Thanks for your work. I started working on the same thing but you and Janusz Dziemidowicz saved me a lot of it. Thanks again, all of my machines are now on your JDK PPA
on January 12, 2012 at 12:37 pm
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Thanks a bunch!
on January 12, 2012 at 1:08 pm
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[...] depending on any part of Sun Java 6 for personal or professional reasons the following PPA was set up by Martin Wimpress. The PPA provides Sun Java packagers for Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and [...]
on January 13, 2012 at 12:25 am
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Now we just need oracle-java-7 packages and this ppa would be gold
on January 13, 2012 at 3:43 am
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I believe the binary packages in that PPA might be in violation of the copyright license under which Oracle provides the codebase. The license that Canonical was relying on is no longer available for linux operating system vendors to use. Your PPA is basically in the same situation the jpackage repository has been working under for years now, and they still don’t redistribute Sun/Oracle’s java as a binary because in doing so they are in direct breach of the licensing terms.
You should think very carefully about this. You agree to abide by certain rules when using the PPA infrastructure and to abide by the Ubuntu CoC. Violating copyright in what you offerin your PPA is a violation of both the PPA usage terms and the spirit of the CoC itself. If you are distributing binaries of Sun’s java code in your packages you are most likely in violation of the copyright license.
You should really talk to some Debian developers who have previously worked with Sun’s java codebase and perhaps also the jpackage maintainers to get some perspective on what is and is not a violation of the licensing terms. And make doubly sure you aren’t crossing that line.
on January 13, 2012 at 10:03 am
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Hi Jef,
Thanks for your thoughts. It was not my intention to violate the Ubuntu CoC or the PPA terms of use. I was simply trying offer a secure Java 6 package for those who require it, such as those in Germany who need to submit online tax returns but can only do so using the Sun Java 6 plugin since none of the alternative Java plugins are permitted. This same issue affects many online banking applications too.
That said, I will develop alternative solution to providing Sun Java 6 packages to those who require/desire them that doesn’t infringe any CoCs, terms or use or copyright. Once I’ve published my alternative I will revoke the my Java PPA.
Regards, Martin.
on January 13, 2012 at 7:02 pm
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Martin,
Please talk to some of the debian developers who previously worked on the sun java packages in the debian repos. Previously, several years ago now, there was a version of the java packaging that used the “download tarball at install time” trick that the flash plugin package (both Ubuntu and Debian) still uses. You might be able to use that sort of mechanism in your replacement packages.You just can’t host and distribute Sun’s binaries as part of the payload. I don’t know if the “download at install time” is still a viable option or not. There could be a click through process on the Oracle website that prevents automation of the download now. I do know that Debian has chosen not to go back to building packages this way and that’s not a good sign.
Jpackage uses a different solution which requires users to download the tarball on their own. And then users use that tarball as a source to rebuild and install the rpm package locally to get a binary package that integrates well with their system. Personally, I think this is the cleanest solution legally as each user is interacting with Oracle’s download site and making modifications locally for their own systems.
-jef
on January 14, 2012 at 4:59 pm
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Sorry to hear about canonical’s closing your PPA.
I really hope a new solution can be found in the future.
on January 16, 2012 at 11:49 am
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Jef,
Thanks for your encouragement. I started work on what you described last Friday and will announce it later today.
– https://github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6
At the moment this is a shell script that wraps the downloading of Oracles binary installers, then builds the .debs locally and installs them. For now it will do, but I am thinking of a meta-package approach which can be ‘apt’ installed itself.
on January 16, 2012 at 1:20 pm
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[...] Sun Java 6 JRE and JDK from .deb packages So, Canonical disabled my Java PPA at the end of last week. So I’ve developed another solution for installing Java 6u30 on Ubuntu which doesn’t [...]
on January 31, 2012 at 2:38 pm
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Many thanks – this worked for me on Ubuntu 10.10, enough to get Openfire working.
on February 19, 2012 at 12:13 pm
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The PPA works now. It makes sense to update to 31.