LTS for public releases (original) (raw)

Kim Jensen kim at javadog.io
Wed Nov 8 20:34:42 UTC 2017

Hi Martijn,

I'm going to disagree here.  There are already a number of vendors that provide commercial supported OpenJDK derivatives including RedHat, Azul and of course Oracle. I suspect those support programmes will only be strengthened by the recent changes in release cycle and opening up of technology.  I would not be surprised if other vendors also start offering support because things have been opened up even further! The question is not about the commercially supported JDK's. Customers who can afford to pay will always be able to get that. But, not all customers can afford it - and although the argument can be made that there is no such thing as a free lunch, it is equally important to remember that the freely available and supported version is important for the widespread adoption of the platform.

The Adopt OpenJDK community will also provide thoroughly tested (jtreg + donated tests + JCK) binaries (no support though) for a wide array of platforms, with those platforms fully open and auditable (you know what it was built from as well as what was built). Now, this is the interesting question. How long will these be supported ? Will there be an overlap allowing customers & developers to catch up on the next version without the risk of running on an insecure platform ?

Customers are very happy with the way things are, pre-Java9. But, the drastic changes may have some very damning consequences.

/Kim

Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.

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