How can you get Java for Apple Silicon?

Which version of Java do you require? Oracle does provide versions of version 11 (https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#java11-mac) and newer for Apple Silicon. If you require Java 8, you can fallback to AWS Corretto (https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/), which is also available for Apple Silicon.

I think you should go with the version 8 or AWS Corretto. It doesn't include a dedicated download containing only the Java Runtime (JRE), but the JDK does also contain the JRE. It should solve your problem.

That app is hopefully very compatible with newer Java, as that app is very old. The listed Java 1.6 version there was renamed to Java 6 some fifteen years ago, and Java 18 is current.

The provider does list some known issues with newer Java: http://varna.lri.fr/index.php?lang=en&page=securityfix&css=varna

Load the current version of Oracle Java (Java 18), and try it, and then check with the folks supporting the app if it is not working. (If it fails, you might be re-directed by the app support folks to a long-term-support version, such as Java 17, or Java 11, should the app not work on current Java.)

Some recent versions of Oracle Java—I have not installed Java 18—can provide both a commercially-licensed Oracle HotSpot component and an equivalent non-commercial OpenJDK component, and you may or will want to shift to the OpenJDK component due to the commercial licensing. Review the Oracle licensing for details.

Well, I assume that Apple has lost interest in Java. The website hasn't been updated for years - look at the publication date: March 23, 2016. Since then some alternatives to the Oracle version have become available, and most of them with a nicer license than the Oracle version.

Java on the desktop is really a niche product - besides being used in some Developer IDEs and Enterprise tools.

cmitt68 wrote:

Well, I assume that Apple has lost interest in Java…

In business terms, most platform vendors tend to be disinclined to invest staff and budget in a third-party product whose central purpose is to migrate customer apps from having platform vendor API/ABI dependencies into apps having Oracle Java platform API/ABI dependencies. That, and app performance tends to be poor until and unless a JIT can process the Java code involved, and the Java UIs tend to look like Java and not the platform vendors‘ preferred UI.