JDK 11 General Availability

As scheduled, it was announced today that JDK 11 was released for General Availability. Earlier this week, Iris Clark announced the "JSR 384 (Java SE 11) Final Release" and in that same message referenced the final release version of JSR 384, referenced the "Java SE 11 (18.9) Platform JSR (384)" specification page, and concluded, "The 384 EG is now disbanded."

The "JDK 11 General-Availability Release" page provides "production-ready open-source builds of the Java Development Kit, version 11, an implementation of the Java SE 11 Platform under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception." That same JDK 11 GA Release page also points to "commercial builds of JDK 11 from Oracle under a non-open-source license" that are "available for a wider range of platforms" and which "can be found at the Oracle Help Center."

The "JDK 11 GA Release" page also provides links to the detailed JDK 11 Release Notes, to the list of features (JEPs) associated with JDK 11, to the Java SE/JDK Version 11 API Specification (Javadoc), and to the Java SE 11 Tools and Command Reference.

In the message "Java 11 / JDK 11: General Availability", Mark Reinhold writes:

JDK 11, the reference implementation of Java 11 and the first long-term support release produced under the six-month rapid-cadence release model[1][2], is now Generally Available. We've identified no P1 bugs since we promoted build 28 over four weeks ago so that’s the official GA release, ready for production use.

JDK 11 is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is its status as the basis for Oracle's LTS offering and the likelihood of this being the version of Java many shops will move to if they are currently on Java 8. An interesting read along these lines for those who do not intend to purchase commercial support for Oracle JDK implementations is "The future of Java and OpenJDK updates without Oracle support." Other recent posts that are probably worth reading in light of JDK 11's release are "Oracle JDK Releases for Java 11 and Later", "Java Is Still Free", and "Introducing Java SE 11".

Oracle's "Java SE Development Kit 11 Downloads" page highlights (in orange-ish background and with emphasized title "Important changes in Oracle JDK 11 License") the "substantially different" Oracle Technology Network License Agreement that now applies to Oracle Java SE and provides a link to "this software under the GPL License on jdk.java.net/11" (Oracle's OpenJDK builds).