JavaPreviewing Microsoft's OpenJDK

Previewing Microsoft’s OpenJDK

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On April 6th, 2021, Microsoft announced the preview of the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK. It is a no-cost, open-source Long-Term Support (LTS) distribution of OpenJDK that is free for anyone to deploy anywhere.

OpenJDK includes binaries for Java 11, based on OpenJDK 11.0.10+9, on x64 server and desktop environments on macOS, Linux, and Windows. An Early Access binary for Java 16 for Windows on ARM, based on the latest OpenJDK 16+36 release, has also been published.

Microsoft has seen increasing growth in customer use of Java across their cloud services and development tools, and they are continually working to broaden and deepen their Java support for customers and developers.

The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK binaries for Java 11 have passed the Java Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) for Java 11, which is used to verify compatibility with the Java 11 specification. This Build is a drop-in replacement for any other OpenJDK distribution available in the Java ecosystem.

During the past 18 months, Microsoft contributed more than 50 patches, including macOS packaging, build and infrastructure, GC fixes, enhancements, and JEP 388 – The Windows/AArch64 Port to run Java on Windows ARM devices like the Surface Pro X, for Windows to OpenJDK.

Microsoft’s goal is to have the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK to become the default distribution for Java 11 across Azure-managed services. This means that customers will not have to perform any maintenance tasks, as the transition will be transparent through application deployments.

You can download the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK here. Choose your Operating System option as shown here:

Microsoft-OpenJDK-Java

Figure 1 – OpenJDK Download Options

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