JDK 9: General Availability

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

I'm pleased -- nay, thrilled! -- to announce that JDK 9 is now Generally
Available.  We've identified no P1 bugs since we promoted build 181 seven
weeks ago so that is the official GA release, ready for production use.

GPL'd binaries from Oracle are available here:

  http://jdk.java.net/9

(There are links on that page to Oracle's commercial binaries for those
who are interested.)  I'm sure that binaries from other implementors will
be available in short order.

The key feature of this release is, of course, Project Jigsaw, about
which I've written a bit more over on my blog:

  https://mreinhold.org/blog/jigsaw-complete

Jigsaw is not, however, the only feature!  There are many other excellent
additions and improvements including, but not limited to:

  Improved Process API           http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/102
  HTTP/2 Client (incubating)     http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/110
  Variable Handles               http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/193
  JShell Read-Eval-Print Loop    http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/222
  Javadoc Search                 http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/225
  Linux/AArch64 Port             http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/237
  Marlin Graphics Renderer       http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/265
  Collection Factories           http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/269
  Enhanced Deprecation           http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/277
  Linux/s390x Port               http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/294
  Ahead-of-Time Compilation      http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/295

The complete list of features is on the JDK 9 Project page:

  http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk9/

Thank you to everyone who contributed to JDK 9, whether directly or
indirectly.  It's been a long road, but it will have been worth it.
This release lays a strong foundation for the future of Java.

- Mark