Question

Oracle has released update 2 for Java 7, while it appears OpenJDK is still on the original build 147 which was released last summer.

Will/are updates available for OpenJDK?

There does seem to be an OpenJDK project just for updates (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7u/), which mentions they will release updates at the same time as Oracle, but I just can’t find anything.

Thanks

Marc

Answer 1

I’m going to respond to my own question here to synthesize all my findings and the answers by @Agemen and @Kowser above.

• OpenJDK is a reference implementation and does not change unless the spec changes
• There is an OpenJDK update project which implements all updates in source (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7u/, source http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7u/jdk7u-dev)
• OpenJDK will not provide any compiled or packaged updates. In fact, OpenJDK provided binaries for the initial release just as a convenience.
• It is the responsibility of third party OS/distributors to compile and package Java. E.g. RedHat and Ubuntu
• No third party has yet released updates for Java 7
• These third parties typically use IcedTea to do the compilation and packaging, but IcedTea itself does not do so. http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page

We now have a combination of things that are making usage of Java really painful in open source server deployment

• Oracle JDK has updates (including security fixes) that no OpenJDK package has. This makes using anything other than Oracle JDK result in poorer security
• Oracle JDK can no longer be packaged distributed by third parties (e.g. Ubuntu). Now we have to install it by hand or script it, and maintain it, on all our servers.

I just don’t get it…

Marc

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EDIT

As @Krige pointed out, things seems to have finally kicked into gear with OpenJDK builds available with the latest updates!