Oracle JDK License Gate

Oracle's free window for Java 21 closed on 2026-09-16. If a Dockerfile, a CI workflow or a provisioning script in your repository still pulls the Oracle build of Java, that line is now a paid line, and nothing in your build will say so. The job still goes green.

This extension reads the file you have open and names every Oracle-licensed Java runtime in it, with the line number, the license basis, the free-window status on today's date, and the OpenJDK line that replaces it.

Why the date matters more than the version

Oracle's No-Fee Terms and Conditions cover a Java LTS release until one year after the next LTS ships. JDK 25 shipped on 2025-09-16, so the JDK 21 free window closed on 2026-09-16. JDK 17 left that window on 2024-09-19. Java 8 and Java 11 never had a No-Fee window at all: those are Oracle Technology Network builds, free for development and test only.

That is why a text search does not answer the question. grep oracle finds the word. It cannot tell you that the same line was free last week and is not free today, and a chatbot whose training stopped before September 2026 will still tell you Oracle JDK 21 is free to use in production.

What it costs to be wrong

Oracle Java SE Universal Subscription is list-priced at $15 per employee per month, counting every employee in the company, not every Java install. 250 employees x $15 per employee per month x 12 months = $45,000 a year. The unit is the payroll, not the container.

The 9 rules

Each finding carries the drop-in swap: temurin, graalvm-community, eclipse-temurin:21-jdk, an Adoptium API URL, or an OpenJDK rpm.

Measured on the bundled sample

_fixtures/dirty.yml is a five-job release workflow. The gate reports 6 Oracle-licensed Java pulls in it, at lines 14, 25, 34, 38, 44 and 54. _fixtures/clean.yml is the same workflow with OpenJDK lines and reports 0. Move the date backwards and the JDK 21 findings turn from a closed window into a countdown: the answer follows the calendar, not the file name.

Yardstick

Reading the Java provisioning lines of a repository by hand and checking each one against Oracle's current terms is the same work a license-compliance reviewer does at an hourly rate; the difference is that this gate re-runs it on every file, on every day, for free.

Free and full

Free: the file you have open, all 9 rules, every finding with its swap. That job finishes.

Full version: the same 9 rules swept over every file in the workspace, plus a dated evidence pack - file, line, distribution, license basis, free-window date and swap - that you can hand to procurement or to an Oracle audit, plus team and commercial use. $29 once, 7-day full refund. https://buy.polar.sh/polar_cl_0qxUalAkf4ad9kwGZmCwgbKANSqawgoJq6rVf2ZeWRh

Hub: https://getreadystack.com/tools/oracle-jdk-license-gate

Not legal advice. The dates above are Oracle's published license terms; your own agreement with Oracle, if you have one, is what governs.