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As I understand, Oracle is moving its Oracle JDK to a feature release every 6 months and a Oracle JDK LTS every 3 years or so. Oracle JDK will no longer be free after January 2019. It seems that OpenJDK is also moving to a 6 months release cycle.

My questions are:

  • How is Oracle JDK and OpenJDK keeping up with the Java Specifications if feature releases are released so often?
  • Will OpenJDK also adopt the LTS as a reference implementation to match the Java Specifications? [Answer, yes. See here: "Oracle and the OpenJDK community are moving to a Long Term Support (LTS) release model plus a new class of “Feature” releases."

Thanks!

techathon
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  • Updates for Oracle Java 8 beyond January 2019 will only be available through a commercial license as far as I'm aware. At this time the LTS version 18.9 (aka Java 11) should already be available according to [Oracle's roadmap](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html) which should provide free updates on a regular basis until the next LTS version is shipped. Correct me if I'm wrong please – Roman Vottner May 16 '18 at 14:42
  • @RomanVottner Agreed, Oracle Java 11 LTS will only be available through commercial license after 03/2019. My question is regards the Java Specifications (since OpenJDK is the reference implementation currently) and if OpenJDK will adopt the LTS notion (like Oracle JDK does) for specification compatibility. – techathon May 16 '18 at 15:04

1 Answers1

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First, let's address some misconceptions in the question.

Oracle JDK will no longer be free after January 2019.

From what I've read, only the LTS version will require a paid license. The public version will remain free but will only be supported for as long as there's not a new version out. I surmised as much from Oracle's own roadmap in which they list 18.3 as being supported until September 2018.

Now to the main question: Oracle hasn't changed the specs of the JVM just because they've moved to a 6-month release cycle. What has changed is what features land in a specific version at any given time. Instead of the typical (and oddly familiar) glacial pace of features, we get releases if they're ready within a six-month window.

The only thing that's really changed there is the pace of release and what potentially lands in a release, not the specs.

(Also, OpenJDK and Oracle JDK will become one and the same Soon™. They're working on this.)

Makoto
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  • Thanks for the noted clarification. In the [past](https://youtu.be/YauqubC8FKM?t=16m30s) , major releases corresponded to changes to the Java Specifications while minor versions corresponded to a patches, bugs, etc. For example, a major feature that changes the spec could not be introduced in a minor release. With this change, Oracle will introduce 'major' features in the 6 months releases. Will the specifications be updated frequently to match the six-month window? – techathon May 16 '18 at 15:39
  • I would presume so. We'd have to look back [at the specs page](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/) to see in September, though. – Makoto May 16 '18 at 15:44