Solr and Java

[nikolai-b]

We are using foreman to create systemd service out of the https://github.com/sunspot/sunspot/tree/master/sunspot_solr
This is marked as "not for use in production".
We are using Oracle Java 8 which is still free in production but is EOL.

We should move to https://github.com/dwradcliffe/chef-solr
as testing locally sunspot_solr had issues with Open JDK and the Oracle JDK licence has changed so it would cost to use newer Java versions in production.

[mvl22]

Looks like Oracle have reversed their charging position and Java 17 is released under a no-fee license:

https://www.infoq.com/news/2021/10/oracle-jdk-free-again/
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk-faqs.html

I see that Solr itself lists that OpenJDK is supported:
https://solr.apache.org/guide/8_11/solr-system-requirements.html

[nikolai-b]

Or we can trail postgres fullltext search cyclestreets/cyclescape#1035
This would mean we can scrap the large Java dependency and work with one less technology.

On each OS upgrade, Java vulnerability (log4j) or strange thing systemd thing we could instead use a technology we understand. If the cost of implementing it isn't very high worth considering before next OS upgrade

More background on pg fulltext searching:

https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/postgres-full-text-search-a-search-engine-in-a-database