Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

REDWOOD SHORES and CUPERTINO, California—November 12, 2010—Oracle and Apple® today announced the OpenJDK project for Mac OS® X. Apple will contribute most of the key components, tools and technology required for a Java SE 7 implementation on Mac OS X, including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries, a networking stack and the foundation for a new graphical client. OpenJDK will make Apple’s Java technology available to open source developers so they can access and contribute to the effort.

“We are excited to welcome Apple as a significant contributor in the growing OpenJDK community,” said Hasan Rizvi, Oracle’s senior vice president of Development. “The availability of Java on Mac OS X plays a key role in the cross-platform promise of the Java platform. The Java developer community can rest assured that the leading edge Java environment will continue to be available on Mac OS X in the future. Combined with last month’s announcement of IBM joining the OpenJDK, the project now has the backing of three of the biggest names in software.”

“We’re delighted to be working with Oracle to insure that there continues to be a great version of Java on the Mac,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “The best way for our users to always have the most up to date and secure version of Java will be to get it directly from Oracle.”

Apple also confirmed that Java SE 6 will continue to be available from Apple for Mac OS X Snow Leopard® and the upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion. Java SE 7 and future versions of Java for Mac OS X will be available from Oracle.

Java is a general purpose software development platform that is specifically designed to be open and enable application developers to “write once, run anywhere.” The Java platform is most widely used in business software, web and mobile applications.

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Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for OSX

By Henrik Ståhl on November 12, 2010 12:40 PM

Oracle and Apple just issued the following press release:

REDWOOD SHORES and CUPERTINO, California--November 12, 2010--Oracle and Apple® today announced the OpenJDK project for Mac OS® X. Apple will contribute most of the key components, tools and technology required for a Java SE 7 implementation on Mac OS X, including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries, a networking stack and the foundation for a new graphical client. OpenJDK will make Apple's Java technology available to open source developers so they can access and contribute to the effort.
"We are excited to welcome Apple as a significant contributor in the growing OpenJDK community," said Hasan Rizvi, Oracle's senior vice president of Development. "The availability of Java on Mac OS X plays a key role in the cross-platform promise of the Java platform. The Java developer community can rest assured that the leading edge Java environment will continue to be available on Mac OS X in the future. Combined with last month's announcement of IBM joining the OpenJDK, the project now has the backing of three of the biggest names in software."
"We're delighted to be working with Oracle to insure that there continues to be a great version of Java on the Mac," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "The best way for our users to always have the most up to date and secure version of Java will be to get it directly from Oracle."
Apple also confirmed that Java SE 6 will continue to be available from Apple for Mac OS X Snow Leopard® and the upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion. Java SE 7 and future versions of Java for Mac OS X will be available from Oracle.
...

This announcement is the result of a discussion between Oracle and Apple that has been going on for some time. I understand that the uncertainty since Apple's widely circulated "deprecation" of Java has been frustrating, but due to the nature of these things we have neither wanted to or been able to communicate before. That is as it is, I'm afraid.

For the sake of all Java developers out there, I am very happy that the future of Java on OSX is now assured. I'm sure you have tons of questions, so let me start with a few:

Q: When will JDK 7 be available for OSX?

A: My expectation is that we will release on current supported platforms first, and that OSX support will follow later. The JDK 7 schedule can not easily accomodate large changes like the addition of a new platform.

Q: How much later? What about subsequent releases, will they be simultaneuous with other platforms?

A: Too early to say, sorry.

Q: I love Java and OSX! How can I be part of this?

A: Join OpenJDK as a contributor. Or apply for a position with Oracle (examples, more examples), we're hiring!

More information will follow over the coming weeks and months. Until then, safe coding!