<story><title>Oracle Discontinues Free Java Time Zone Updates</title><url>http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/06/08/051235/oracle-discontinues-free-java-time-zone-updates</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>zorlem</author><text>Oracle changed the distribution terms of TZUpdater from free (as in beer) to available only to paying customers at least half a year ago.&lt;p&gt;It should be noted, though, that this largely affects only users that for some reason can&amp;#x27;t update their JRE and are lagging behind the latest version. Oracle still provides up-to-date versions of the TZ data with the latest JRE.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not a big issue since one could use IBM&amp;#x27;s TZ updater tool or compile the TZ data from the raw Olson TZ database using javazic.jar available from OpenJDK.</text></comment>
<story><title>Oracle Discontinues Free Java Time Zone Updates</title><url>http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/06/08/051235/oracle-discontinues-free-java-time-zone-updates</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>thwarted</author><text>I never understood why the system-wide timezone database, at least on UNIX-like systems, wasn&amp;#x27;t used by Java.  Why does Java need its own timezone database&amp;#x2F;database format?  Why do I need to install new timezone databases on my Linux system that runs Java?  Why can&amp;#x27;t the Olsen tzinfo files be installed on systems where the OS provider doesn&amp;#x27;t provide them?</text></comment>