JRockit is Now Free!!! Period.

The conversion strategy is going to pay of for the customers. Today, Henrik announced, that JRockit is free. Not as in free-beer but at last under the same conditions, you are used to have for the Sun HotSpot JVM. Oracle has been talking about this since months (e.g. blog) and we are all very excited to see the new converged JVM finally. This is a first big step towards a high reliable, performing and single JVM for all your Java needs. Henrik also published some FaQs along with this announcement: I picked the ones, I like the most:

Q: Does this mean I can now use JRockit with any Java application?
A: Yes, under the same terms as you currently use the Oracle (Sun) JDK. You don't need to inform us and you don't need to pay anything.

Come-on: Give your heart a kick: Let's go: I've written a very short howto starting over with JRockit and GlassFish. Start using it today! :)

Q: I am a developer, does this mean I can now use JRockit Mission Control for free?
A: Yes, there is no cost for development use. See the license for details.

Wow .. man, this is great news in general: I personally love the JRMC. It's the most complete and ootb solution for getting your JVM under control. Nothing against VisualVM or even the JConsole, but ... JRMC plays in a league of it's own.

In general Oracle seems not to recommend moving to JRockit today. Even if you could. I guess, they are right. Everything in Henriks post seems to indicate, that they are willing to have the first converged version out with the Java SE 7 / OpenJDK 7 release later the year.
Anyway, if you are in need for some very effective memory management and a high speed JVM. You finally have it! Great!

And don't forget to look at the JRockit bible: "Oracle JRockit - The Definitive Guide". I have written a review about it a few months ago and I am still getting goose skin thinking about the hard time this book gave me ... but it was worth it!