JDK 12 enters Rampdown Phase One next week

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

JDK 12 enters Rampdown Phase One next week, on Thursday, 13 December.
Changes intended for JDK 12 should be in the main-line repository
(https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk) or the client repository
(jdk/client), by 16:00 UTC on that day [1].

At that time we’ll fork jdk/jdk to the JDK 12 stabilization repository,
jdk/jdk12, and promote next week’s build (jdk-12+24) and all remaining
JDK 12 builds from there.

We'll semi-automatically merge changes pushed to jdk/jdk12 into the
main-line jdk/jdk repository, as we have in previous feature-release
transitions.  This means that:

  - If you make a change in JDK 12 then you needn't do any extra
    work to get it into the main line, though if a merge conflict
    arises then you might be asked to help resolve it.

  - If you need to make a change in both JDK 12 and the main line
    then just push it to JDK 12, and wait for the automatic merge
    to complete.

Changes pushed into the jdk/jdk or jdk/client repositories after 16:00
UTC next Thursday will be destined for JDK 13 unless they're back-ported.

The jdk/submit repo will continue to be for main-line (jdk/jdk) work.
We’ll set up a jdk/submit12 repo for jdk/jdk12 work.

The Rampdown Phase One process is defined in JEP 3 [2].

- Mark


[1] https://time.is/1600_13_Dec_2018_in_UTC?JDK_12_Rampdown_Phase_One
[2] https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/3