Update on JDK 8 status

[Mathias Axelsson]

Hi,

I'd like to give you an update on where we are with JDK 8. For the past
months everyone has been working hard on bug fixing in order to be able to
build a release candidate of JDK 8 in the latter part of January. At this
stage only showstoppers (P1) are being considered for fixing in the initial
JDK 8 release. Non-showstopper bugs will be deferred to a later release in
order to ensure we keep to the JDK 8 schedule [1] and can ship on March 18.

We have a few fixes that are pending integration but overall things are
looking very good and we're on-track to have the release candidate built
before the January 23 deadline.

As we're approaching the deadline for building the final release candidate
we're making some slight changes to the build promotion schedule. The
January 16 promoted build will be done according to the build schedule.
Beyond that date builds will be made on demand based on what fixes have
gone in. We're making this adjustment to keep the turnaround time as short
as possible if we have to take a fix and respin.

Kind regards,
Mathias Axelsson, Oracle JDK 8 Release Manager

[1] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk8/