License

Summary

Eliya JDK is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception, the same licence as upstream OpenJDK. This combination permits production use, commercial use, redistribution, and linking from proprietary applications without those applications becoming GPL-licensed.

What you can do

• Use Eliya in production, including commercial products.
• Run Eliya as the JVM for proprietary applications: the Classpath Exception means your application does not become GPL by virtue of running on Eliya.
• Redistribute Eliya unchanged.
• Modify Eliya (source is public); modifications must be redistributed under the same licence if distributed.

What you must do

For internal use only (most common case)

• No source disclosure required if you use Eliya inside your organisation without redistributing it.
• Modifications you make to Eliya for internal use stay private.

If you redistribute Eliya binaries (unmodified)

• Include the GPLv2+CE licence text with the distribution.
• Preserve copyright notices.
• Make the corresponding source code available (typically by pointing to the public Eliya repository).

If you redistribute Eliya binaries (modified)

• All of the above, plus
• Publish your source code modifications under GPLv2+CE.
• Make modified source code available to recipients of the modified binaries.

Eliya's contributions to the source

Eliya's source patches (the EliyaProfile and EliyaConflictCheck flags plus the diagnostic path layout) are licensed under GPLv2+CE, the same licence as the upstream OpenJDK source they sit alongside. Copyright on these patches is held by Asymm Systems (Pvt) Ltd.

For the precise enumeration of Eliya's source contributions, see Differences from upstream.

Trademark

"Eliya" and "Eliya JDK" are product names of Asymm Systems (Pvt) Ltd. "Asymm" and the Asymm Systems wordmark are trademarks of Asymm Systems (Pvt) Ltd.

Permitted uses (no permission required)

• Nominative use: referencing Eliya by name in factual statements ("Our service runs on Eliya JDK", "We migrated from Corretto to Eliya").
• Editorial reference: articles, blog posts, conference talks discussing Eliya.
• Comparative reference: comparative analysis with other JDK distributions, subject to truth-in-advertising principles.
• Internal documentation: your organisation's runbooks, architecture diagrams, compliance documents referencing Eliya.

Uses requiring permission

• Distributing modified versions under the "Eliya" name.
• Using "Eliya" or "Asymm" in product names, company names, or domain names you control.
• Using Asymm Systems' logos or wordmarks in marketing materials in ways that imply endorsement or affiliation.

Forks and modifications

Per GPLv2+CE you may fork and modify Eliya for any purpose. The trademark policy requires that distributed forks use a different product name, for example, "MyCompany JDK based on Eliya" rather than "MyCompany Eliya". This is the same pattern most open-source projects with trademarks follow (Red Hat / CentOS, Eclipse / Adoptium, etc.).

Questions about specific use cases: legal@asymm.systems.

Compatibility certification

Eliya 25.0.x is built from upstream OpenJDK 25 source. The upstream OpenJDK 25 source passes the Java SE 25 Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), but TCK conformance is a property of a specific built binary, not of the source code. The Eliya binary is its own build and has not yet been run against the TCK; the Eliya binary's own TCK run, under the OpenJDK Community TCK License Agreement (OCTLA), is a Phase 2 deliverable.

Bundled components in future phases

Phase 1 ships only the Eliya JDK itself, distributed under GPLv2+CE.

Phase 2 will bundle additional diagnostic tooling with the JDK distribution. Each bundled component retains its own licence:

• Eclipse MAT (headless): Eclipse Public License 2.0 (EPL-2.0).
• async-profiler: Apache License 2.0.

These licences are compatible with redistribution alongside Eliya's GPLv2+CE-licensed JDK. The Eliya distribution will include each component's licence text and copyright notices in the appropriate directories.

Phase 2's FIPS-validated variant (eliya-jdk-fips) will bundle a FIPS-validated provider distributed under a separate commercial licence. Customers of the FIPS variant will receive explicit licensing terms covering the bundled FIPS components.

Phase 3 (Asymm Forensics) and Phase 4 (compliance profile values) maintain GPLv2+CE for the Eliya JDK itself. Commercial components introduced in those phases (the Asymm Forensics commercial layer, compliance-profile maintenance subscriptions) are subject to separate Asymm commercial licensing terms.

Patent considerations

GPLv2 with the Classpath Exception does not contain an explicit patent grant clause (unlike GPLv3 or the Apache License 2.0). Under US copyright law, the act of distributing software under an open-source licence may give rise to an implied patent licence covering normal use of the distributed code, but this is doctrinal rather than a contractual guarantee written into the licence text. Asymm Systems' contributions to Eliya are distributed under the same GPLv2+CE terms as the upstream OpenJDK code they sit alongside.

Enterprises whose procurement or compliance posture requires explicit patent indemnification beyond what GPLv2+CE provides can contact Asymm Systems to discuss commercial support arrangements that include explicit indemnification terms.

Contributing back to upstream

When Eliya makes patches that benefit the broader OpenJDK community, those patches are submitted back to upstream OpenJDK following the OpenJDK contribution process. Phase 1 source patches are Eliya-specific (the EliyaProfile flag namespace and three-level diagnostic path layout) and are not upstream candidates; future patches that benefit upstream will be contributed back and tracked in the project changelog.

Export controls

Eliya, as a software distribution, may be subject to export control laws in the jurisdictions where it is distributed and used. The Eliya distribution itself contains cryptographic functionality inherited from upstream OpenJDK, which is generally classified under standard mass-market software export classifications.

Customers in jurisdictions with specific export control requirements (US Department of Commerce sanctions, EU dual-use regulations, etc.) should evaluate their own compliance obligations. Asymm Systems does not provide legal advice on export compliance.

Full license text

Canonical copy: github.com/asymmsystems/eliya-jdk/LICENSE. Upstream reference: openjdk.org/legal/gplv2+ce.html.