Microsoft has announced a preview of its build of OpenJDK, which is the open-source distribution for Java. Microsoft’s OpenJDK build includes binaries for Java 11, and the company has also released an early access binary for Java 16 for Windows on ARM.
“Java is one of the most important programming languages used today — developers use Java to build everything from critical enterprise applications to hobby robots. At Microsoft, we’ve seen increasing growth in customer use of Java across our cloud services and development tools. We’re continually working to broaden and deepen our Java support for customers and developers,” Bruno Borges, principal program manager of the Java Engineering Group at Microsoft, wrote in a post.
Microsoft’s OpenJDK build is based on OpenJDK source code and follows the same build scripts that are used by the Eclipse Adoptium project. It has also been tested against the Eclipse Adoptium Quality Assurance suite and passed the Java Technical Compatibility Kit (TCK) for Java 11. The TCK is used to verify compatibility with the Java 11 specification.
According to Microsoft, its OpenJDK build can be used as a drop-in replacement for any OpenJDK distribution in the Java ecosystem.
In late 2021, Microsoft will make its OpenJDK build the default distribution for Java 11 in Azure-managed services.
This build is also a long-term support release, and Microsoft will support Java 11 through at least 2025.
“We believe that a thriving OpenJDK community is key to Java’s continued success, and welcome Microsoft to the impressive list of those offering builds of OpenJDK,” said Scott Sellers, president & CEO of Azul. “This is great news for OpenJDK and Java in general, and further fuels the momentum as enterprises and developers move off proprietary Java offerings to OpenJDK distributions. We look forward to our ongoing collaboration with Microsoft in support of Azure’s Java users and of the Java user community as a whole.”
