The implication of the JDK-8194154 fix in jdk8u342.

[Sergey Bylokhov]

Hello, the last release of jdk8u includes the fix for JDK-8194154[1] which disabled the possibility 
to change the "user.dir" property.

Changing the "user.dir" was not recommended from the beginning but it was not forbidden, so there 
are some old applications that rely on the old behavior. One of the app which sets the "user.dir" is 
Gradle. The Gradle has a notice in the documentation for the user:
"Never use new File(relative path) because this creates a path relative to the current working 
directory (CWD). Gradle can make no guarantees about the location of the CWD, which means builds 
that rely on it may break at any time".

But for compatibility reasons they still set the "user.dir" property, so the old plugins will work. 
Now that compatibility is broken due to the fix I mention. We found such apps immediately after the 
release.

I would like to ask what was the reason for the backport, is it critical enough to change a 
behavior? I did not find any broad discussion about that backport nor the reason why it was pushed 
but I would like to bring a compatibility concerns about that change. I think we should roll it back 
as soon as possible.

Please share your opinions?

[1] https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8194154

-- 
Best regards, Sergey.