OpenJdk 11 vs OpenJdk 13 Adoption

[syates at stevendyates.com]

Hi John, thank you very much for this. This is exactly the information  
I am looking for. :)

Kind Regards
Steven Yates

Quoting John Patrick <nhoj.patrick at gmail.com>:

> Hi Steven,
>
> - JDK 1.8, 11 and (17 TBC) are LTS versions so supported longest.
> - JDK 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 are non-LTS versions and are only
> supported until the next release.
> - JDK 13 went out of support when JDK 14 was released. So I wouldn't
> pick JDK 13 to upgrade too.
> - JDK 14 is the current latest version in support.
>
> Assuming the new 6 months release cycles keep happening and it is not
> changed then the following will probably be also true;
> - JDK 14 will go out of support when JDK 15 is released in ~20 days
> (Mid Sept 2020).
> - JDK 15 will go out of support when JDK 16 is released in ~6 months
> (March 2021).
> - JDK 16 will go out of support when JDK 17 is released in 12 months
> (Sept 2021).
> - JDK 17 will be the next LTS version assuming that's confirmed and
> not changed in the next 12 months.
>
> Due to a non-LTS version only being supported for 6 months, I would be
> surprised if any non critical fixes will be addressed and will simply
> be forward patches into the next version and tested there. I'm not
> expecting fixes to be backported to non-LTS versions, and a criteria
> based approach to deciding what backport happens from say JDK 15 to
> JDK 11.
>
> OpenJDK offers installation files for Linux, so you can do a tar
> install directly from https://jdk.java.net/14/. So when a new version
> is released, you can install it yourself.
>
> If you are wanting to do a debian "sudo apt-get install
> openjdk-15-jdk-headless" then it comes down to each linux distribution
> and the approach they have taken. Some have 3rd party user contributed
> repositories where the latest is available, some I suspect are
> maintained by JDK contributors to make their own lives or testing
> easier. But in general I would say as Java has now classified non-LTS
> and LTS versions. I would be surprised if a LTS linux release would
> take on a non-LTS release. But a non-LTS linux release or one with a
> rolling release, they might take on a non-LTS version. Another issue
> is the linux distribution might have different cut off dates, so they
> might have the last non-LTS version.
>
> All above is my personal version and from using Java and OpenJDK what
> I understand about the current situation.
>
> I'm also looking at upgrading from Java 1.8 as the base. We have a
> develop branch on JDK 1.8, branched off to create feature/java11 and
> similar for feature/java14. By the end of september feature/java14
> will be upgraded to feature/java15. These branches have
> module-info.java and CICD selecting that JDK version and other minor
> JDK CICD specific patches. We decided against using a matrix build
> approach as we control the Java version where the application is
> deployed.
>
> We keep cascading rebasing the feature/javaX branches so changes from
> develop are tested against the newer Java versions. If CICD doesn't
> pass we review the issues and feed that back into how we are
> developing code. So we can continually tweak our pattern,
> dependencies, structure or style. So it took about 10 rebases and 3
> month to get the feature/java11 branch to pass on CICD, but only about
> 1 day of total direct effort was related to JDK 11, which was doing
> the rebases and reviewing CICD output. As we drip feed the fixes in
> whilst doing other development. Yes it took a long ish time, but
> because we had no actual dedicated budget for upgrading to JDK 11 from
> JDK 1.8, so similar to your best money from upgrade budget.
>
> OpenJDK User
> John
>
> On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 at 12:05, Ben Evans  
> <benjamin.john.evans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Steven,
>>
>> As part of my day job (Architect for JVM technologies at New Relic) I
>> produced this report:
>> https://blog.newrelic.com/technology/state-of-java/ back in March
>>
>> It's based on the actual observations of which JVMs our customers are
>> running in production. We see data from 10s of millions of JVMs every
>> day.
>>
>> The pattern is clear - very few companies are choosing to use the
>> versions of Java that are not long-term support releases (Java 8 and
>> 11 are the only LTS releases currently. Java 13 is not LTS and is
>> already EOL).
>>
>> The numbers have moved a bit - we now see 15-20% of users running Java
>> 11 and ~80% running Java 11, but the general pattern remains the same.
>>
>> The most popular distribution for Java 11 that provides ongoing
>> updates for free is AdoptOpenJDK - https://adoptopenjdk.net/ - which
>> is becoming part of the Eclipse Foundation. If you are heavy users of
>> AWS you may also want to consider Amazon Corretto.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 at 07:27, <syates at stevendyates.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi OpenJDK Mailing list, I am reaching out as I would be interested in
>> > some general advice and items for consideration when upgrading our
>> > existing Java 8 adoption to either the OpenJdk 11.* or OpenJdk 13.*.
>> > My manager has told me she wants to get the best value for her upgrade
>> > dollars so the version of Java we choose would ideally be supported
>> > for as long as possible (min 5-6 years) with bugfixes, security
>> > patches etc.
>> >
>> > Also with OpenJDK, how does the patching process work. i.e. If a bug /
>> > vulnerability is discovered, do these fixes get rolled up and
>> > distributed to the major Linux distros as part of their regular
>> > patching cycle? WOuld be interested in how the process works plus any
>> > guidance you may have would be appreciated. Thank you kindly. :)
>> >
>> > Sincerely
>> > Steven Yates
>> >