Re: The meaning, or not, of “LTS”

[Anthony Vanelverdinghe]

Preview features are specified in the Java SE Platform JSRs, hence tested in their accompanying TCKs, and thus must remain unaltered. On the other hand, incubator modules are not, so I believe vendors are allowed to ship upgraded versions (though I don't readily see the value in doing so: developers using incubator modules are likely to upgrade to subsequent JDKs anyway), or not ship them at all.

Kind regards,
Anthony

On Sunday, May 16, 2021 14:37 CEST, Cay Horstmann <cay.horstmann at gmail.com> wrote: 
 
> What happens with experimental, preview, and incubator features that are 
> introduced in an LTS and subsequently modified? Are providers of an LTS 
> obligated to keep the feature in its unmodified form, or may they drop 
> it or replace it with a later version? I am just wondering about the 
> effort of keeping an obsolete feature version alive for many years.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Cay
> 
> On 14/05/2021 00:37, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
> > I’ve heard a few contributors report that they’ve received advice along
> > the lines of, “since JDK 17 is an LTS we should focus on stability, and
> > avoid doing major enhancements.”
> > 
> > This suggests that the stability of non-LTS releases is not important,
> > but nothing is further from the truth.  We should focus on stability
> > in every JDK release, since every JDK release is meant to be ready for
> > production use.  That a release is designated an LTS release is no
> > reason to hold back on innovation.
> > 
> > If you have an enhancement that will preserve stability and is ready to
> > integrate then, by all means, please proceed with the usual high level
> > of care and consideration.  Whether the target release is an LTS or not
> > is, in almost all ways, completely irrelevant.
> > 
> > - Mark
> > 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Cay S. Horstmann | http://horstmann.com | mailto:cay at horstmann.com