Over the past 22 years, Java has grown into a vibrant community that has reached a scale without equal. Java continues to bring value to developers and to enterprises worldwide. Thoughtful planning and ecosystem involvement has helped grow Java into one of the most used programming languages on the planet. With more than 12 million developers worldwide running Java, Java continues to be the #1 programming language of choice by software programmers. Moving forward Oracle wants to ensure Java is well-positioned for modern development and growth in the cloud.

In 2017, Oracle and the Java community announced its intentions to shift to a new six-month cadence for Java meant to reduce the latency between major releases. At the same time Oracle announced it's plans to build and ship OpenJDK binaries as well. This release model takes inspiration from the release models used by other platforms and by various operating-system distributions addressing the modern application development landscape. The pace of innovation is happening at an ever-increasing rate and this new release model will allow developers to leverage new features in production as soon as possible. Modern application development expects simple open licensing and a predictable time-based cadence, and the new release model delivers on both.