Proposed new schedule for JDK 8

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

2013/4/18 2:28 -0700, mark.reinhold at oracle.com:
> As I wrote earlier today on my blog [1], the Java 8 schedule is no longer
> achievable due to a renewed focus on security on the part of all of us
> here at Oracle.
> 
> ...
> 
> With all that in mind, I think the least-bad option is to slip the
> schedule just enough to finish Lambda.
> 
> Here, then, is a proposed new schedule for JDK 8:
> 
>   2013/05/09  M7  Feature Complete
>   2013/07/18      Rampdown start
>   2013/09/05  M8  Developer Preview
>   2013/09/12      All Tests Run
>   2013/10/10      API/Interface Freeze
>   2013/10/24      Zero Bug Bounce
>   2013/11/21      Rampdown phase 2
>   2014/01/23  M9  Final Release Candidate
>   2014/03/18  GA  General Availability
> 
> Is this the best possible course of action?  I think it's better than the
> alternatives, but I'm open to suggestions.  I'd like to hear from other
> contributors to this Project, especially those involved in efforts to use
> the JDK 8 code base to build binary distributions that are expected to
> see wide use.

I've seen no objections to this proposal.  Reasonably broad community
support for this change has been expressed in comments on my blog entry,
on Twitter, and elsewhere.

The above schedule is, therefore, now the plan of record, with one minor
change: The M7 (Feature Complete) milestone is moved out by two weeks,
to 2013/5/23, in order to ensure that all planned feature work will make
that milestone.

I've updated the JDK 8 Project pages [2] accordingly.

- Mark


[1] http://mreinhold.org/blog/secure-the-train
[2] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk8/