Hi, JDK 8 is making progress towards the planned GA date of March 18, 2014. During the summer we entered rampdown phase 1 [1] where the bar was raised in terms of what bugs can be fixed (only P1-P3 issues). Our next milestone is Zero Bug Bounce (ZBB, [1]) where the focus is addressing the backlog of bugs targeted to the JDK 8 release so that we only have showstopper issues left to address.
ZBB is targeted for October 24, but since ZBB is a criterion and not a point in time we cannot declare that we've hit ZBB until the criterion has been met. For JDK 7 it took us a few weeks beyond the planned ZBB date until we hit the criterion. We've been monitoring the number of bugs targeted to JDK 8 and for product bugs we're in fairly good shape to get to ZBB. However for some areas we need a little more time and therefore we are proposing to make an exception for three areas: - Documentation bugs (e.g. Java API docs) should be allowed to be fixed until Dec 12 unless they affect the product build. For doc bugs that affects the product build (e.g. man pages) the regular milestone dates must apply. - Test stabilization bugs should be allowed to be fixed until Dec 12 - JavaFX should be allowed to fix P1-P3 issues until Dec 5 to ensure the quality of FX is good enough when we ship JDK 8. The reason doc bugs affecting the product must follow the regular milestone dates is because we will be translating some of these. We've provided translation drops throughout the release and only have one more planned translation cycle (for showstopper issues). This translation drop will be cut on October 24 so therefore any critical issues that impact translation must be in the JDK 8 master no later than October 24. The above proposed exceptions assumes that all the fixes are in the JDK 8 master at the proposed date and will thus have to take into account the extra time needed to integrate the fixes from the team repos into the master. We are proposing to grant exceptions for these to ensure the documentation would be as good as possible when we ship JDK 8. Regarding test stabilization this work is very important as well to ensure the tests are stable and produce predictable results. We will not be done with the test stabilization in JDK 8 and will continue to work in this area in future update releases but we want to give the teams some extra time to address as much as possible before we ship JDK 8. Please let us know if you see any issues with the above proposal. Another milestone that we set up when we planned JDK 8 was the API/interface freeze milestone. The date for this milestone was set to October 10 which means API and interface changes must now focus only on showstopper issues. The reasons we're raising the bar is to ensure the amount of changes going on in the JSRs goes down so that the JCK and standalone TCK development team can complete their work in time for the release next year. The Java / Technology Compliance Kit team need to ensure the tests match the specification and thus they need some extra time to complete their work once the specification changes has been completed. The TCK development is required for the JSR activity and standardization in the Java Community Process (JCP). Another reason we are raising the bar is to make sure there is enough time to test and bake the changes before we ship JDK 8. Please note that APIs and interfaces for Java SE 8 JSRs can go through changes until the Final Approval Ballot has been completed and the Java SE 8 specification has been approved. The intent of the API/interface freeze milestone is to ensure that focus shifts to only address showstopper issues and that bigger changes are not taking place at this stage. Release bug dashboard With the JDK Bug System opened up you can use the JDK 8 release bug dashboard [2] to see what bugs are in scope for the release. The release bug dashboard will give you details about unresolved issues that are being investigated but it also provides details about what has been deferred to a later release. It will also provide you with insight into what showstopper issues are being investigated or requested to be fixed in JDK (called critical watch/critical request in the dashboard). I hope that you will find the release bug dashboard helpful and that it will allow for more transparency in terms of what bugs are in scope for the JDK 8 release. Later milestones (heads up) Here are some details about upcoming milestones and the end-game for JDK 8. - On November 21 we will go into rampdown phase 2 [1]. At that stage only showstopper bugs will be allowed to be fixed. - On January 14, 2014 we will integrate the January CPU fixes into the JDK 8 master to ensure that JDK 8 includes the latest security fixes. We cannot integrate the fixes until the CPU release has gone live, hence the late integration date. We are going to test the CPU fixes out internally at Oracle prior to these being integrated to mitigate the risk of integrating these late in the JDK 8 release. - In case any issues are raised after we've integrated the Jan CPU fixes we have some buffer time between Jan 14 and the deadline for when we must have built the final release candidate for JDK 8 and start final testing. For all intents and purposes everyone must assume that all fixes are completed and in the JDK 8 master before January 14, 2014, since we may cut the final release candidate as soon as the CPU fixes has been integrated. Outstanding Updates I will make sure we post details about the critical and deferral process on the OpenJDK web site at least a couple of weeks prior to entering rampdown phase 2 so you know what the process is. Kind regards, Mathias Axelsson, Oracle JDK 8 release manager [1] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk8/milestones [2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/secure/Dashboard.jspa?selectPageId=12078
