OpenJDKĪlthough there has long been an open source version of Java from Java 11 onwards Oracle has officially provided the free to use, open source, OpenJDK. OpenJDK is Oracle’s open source version of the JDK. In some cases, this has certainly been a limiting factor in the adoption of Java 11.Īn alternative to the official Oracle JDK (Java Development Kit) is the OpenJDK. This means that moving from Java 8, to the next LTS version Java 11, could have significant financial or legal implications. From 2019, if an organisation makes commercial use of Java 11+ then they must pay for it. Licensingīack in 2018 Oracle announced fundamental changes to the way in which Java is licensed. It is also worth noting that, although Oracle ended free support for Java 8 in January 2019 for commercial use (and will end it for personal use in December 2020), it is possible to pay for commercial support for Java 8 until December 2030. This means that all intervening releases, including Java 14 and the planned Java 15 (September 2020) do not have LTS.įrom a commercial point of view no organisation should be considering putting a system into production that relies on a version of Java that does not have LTS. Unfortunately, not all versions of Java are LTS versions! Since this policy was introduced only Java 8 (2014) and Java 11 (2018) have been designated as having LTS. One of the key reasons why Java 8 is still so popular is that it is an LTS (or Long-Term Support) version. One survey from February 2020, found that 64% of developers reported that Java 8 remained the most often used Java release.īelow we outline some of the reasons why an organisation might choose to stay with an older version of Java, rather than rushing to adopt a shiny new version. Indeed, since Oracle decided to change the frequency of Java releases, as well as its attitude towards Long Term Support, many organisations have decided to stick with Java 8 despite numerous newer releases. There are of course many reasons why an older version of a programming language might be required, however the request from this client to use Java 8 in particular is far from unique. This raises the question, why did the client want to use such an old version of Java? This may not seem that strange of a request until you realise that Java SE 8 (aka "Java 8") was released in March 2014 and that the current Java version, released in March 2020, is Java 14. Recently, we were asked to ensure that a course we were giving used Java 8.
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