When NO_DEMOS is true, the jdk build does not create build/$platform/demo but it still copies the demo/DEMOS_LICENSE file into build/$platform/j2sdk-image . This makes the deploy build to believe the demos still need to copied (see check.buildDemos property in deploy/make/ant/Release.build.xml). However, when it tries to copy them to build/$platform/demo, the directory is not found, and the build fails.