Hi all, 3½ years ago, we announced 2.8.0-beta1 and that it now required JDK 7, and that started quite a long discussion: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google-web-toolkit-contributors/TzsINiDf5xg/discussion A few days ago, there's been renewed interest into upgrading the Jetty version GWT is using (for reasons I don't support, but that's orthogonal to the point): https://github.com/gwtproject/gwt/issues/9606 Upgrading Jetty however means requiring JDK 8; and *we have people volunteering to do this work*.
We're in April 2019, Oracle just gave the keys of OpenJDK 11 updates to RedHat, them already being the stewards for OpenJDK 8 and 7. JDK 6 is dead and buried (Oracle's extended support ended last December, and it looks like even Azul Systems –the company that, to my knowledge, sells the longest support– no longer provides paid support for OpenJDK 6 either) OpenJDK 7 will receive free updates for only one more year (June 2020), though some vendors will provide paid support 'til 2022 (e.g. Azul, even providing "passive" support –whatever it means– 'til 2024); for Oracle JDK 7, Oracle's Premier Support will end in July this year (tick tock tick tock), and extended support will last 'til 2022. OpenJDK 8 will receive free updates until June 2023 (4 years from now, almost the same time that has passed since 2.8.0-beta1, just sayin') For people sharing code with Android, correct me if I'm wrong, but latest tooling improvements (D8 <https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/d8>) mean that you can use libraries targeting JDK 8 even on older Android devices (basically, D8 integrates retrolambda into the Android toolchain), so *even Android is no longer an excuse.* *Maybe it's time to switch to JDK 8 as the new baseline for GWT*: by the time we release a 2.9 (who knows when), OpenJDK 7 will only have months to go (tick tock, 14 months from now). Fwiw, my reasoning for mostly/only caring about free updates to the JDK are: - AFAICT, GWT receives no money. Some companies (possibly?) dedicate time for maintaining GWT, but it mostly runs on the free time and free will of a few people (I wouldn't even count myself in any longer) - Companies that run those older JDK versions likely pay for support. If they have money for that, they can also build their own version of GWT that still supports those older JDK versions (either adapting the most recent GWT version to bring compatibility with older JDKs, or backport fixes to older GWT versions). - Companies that run older JDKs without paying for support, besides being crazy (particularly if their servers are exposed on the Internet), can IMO live with older GWT versions too (for JDK 7, in a year from now, that'll still include GWT up to 2.8.2, the current latest release) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GWT Contributors" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit-contributors+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/google-web-toolkit-contributors/079d422f-0294-43b4-94be-3915bb349fda%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
