Oracle decided to extend Free Support Lifetime of Java 8
On January 30, 2018, Oracle‘s senior director of product management announced that Oracle’s support for Java SE 8 has been extended to January 2019 and by the end of 2020 Oracle will continue to provide consumers with a personalized (non-enterprise) use-based update of Java SE 8. The detail is below
- The public availability of Java SE 8 updates from Oracle has been extended to at least January 2019. Moreover, Oracle will continue to provide consumers with updates for personal (non-corporate) use of Java SE 8 through at least the end of 2020.
- Oracle will continue to support Java SE 8 Web Start applications for public and personal (non-corporate) use to the same dates noted above.
- Oracle will continue to commercially support Java Web Start on Java SE 8 for commercial use, or when used in conjunction with Oracle products that have a Web Start dependency, through at least March, 2025.
- As announced in 2015, Applets will continue to be supported in Java SE 8 until at least March, 2019, pending continued support by browser vendors.
Martijn Verburg, leader of the London Java Community (LJC) reacted to the announcement:
The extension of free support for Java 8 is welcome news for enterprises that have extensive Java deployments. Although Java 9+ sets a new high standard for Java security and gives other infrastructure benefits (e.g. smaller footprint), it is fair to say that migration at scale is non trivial.
Enterprises now can plan for this via their traditional change release cycles while still ensuring their apps have the latest security and stability patches.
There is currently no indication that Oracle does not have any version of Java 9 and Java 10 that will provide long-term technical support. However, in a bulletin, it said there would be a small delay in the time of technical support.
Source: infoq
