I'm working for a european org that is close to government and has been granted immortality by law, so market forces only apply in a very dampened capacity. They pay a premium for Commercial Java to be able to ask for certain features or support. ...Oracle always declines them with a variety of excuses, so there's no upside. Their older developers say they use features specific to the Oracle version, but I've never seen that, it works fine with OpenJDK, Jetbrain's, Amazon's or Microsoft's JDK
I used to work for such org, I'm 99.42% sure they don't use those features.
That situation arise when the person responsible for approving contracts doesn't understant jack and takes the most expensive one so that if any problem arise, it's not their fault.
The EU is where I found the strongest "Nobody Gets Fired For Buying IBM" mindset.
And Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and the others know it.
Sounds like the older developers have some form of Stockholm Syndrome.
The older devs have zero upsides if they use a different JDK, but plenty of downsides if it introduces any issues. Is it really surprising then that they want to maintain the status quo?
Stockholm Syndrome is not a scientifically sound thing
While a fun fact, it's not referenced here as a scientific thing, just to point out that the engineers' attachment to Oracle Java is not rational.
I understand. I'm just saying that Stockholm Syndrome is very likely not a real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome