That's not true. You can download Oracle 8i Enterprise Edition for FREE, let alone just the JDBC drivers for it!
Just go to
www.oracle.com and click on 'Download'. Then select 'Oracle JDBC drivers' from the right drop-down menu. You need to be a registered member, dont worry, it's free. After you download the zip file, just place it in your CLASSPATH and make sure you do the following in your code to use the driver to access your database.
/* import statement for driver */
import oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver;
/* load the driver */
Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
/* create a connection, replace all variables in "[]" with your environment settings of course */
Connection c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc
racle:thin:@[HOSTNAME]:[PORT]:[ORACLE-SID]", "[USERNAME]", "[PASSWORD]");
hope it helps,
SAF