Transition from Oracle addresses need for continued support of the technology and community

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it will serve as the steward of the OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11 projects following a transition of leadership from Oracle. With the transition, Red Hat is affirming its support of the Java community and following a similar path that led to its leadership of both the OpenJDK 6 and OpenJDK 7 projects.

OpenJDK is an open source implementation of Java, one of the most widely-used programming languages for building enterprise-grade applications. In its role as steward of OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11 update releases, Red Hat will work with the community to enable continued innovation in Java.

Red Hat has been a member of the OpenJDK community since 2007 and is one of the largest contributors to the project. Red Hat’s long-time Java technical lead, Andrew Haley, was appointed as project lead for OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11 in February 2019. He has been an active member of the OpenJDK governing board for seven years and, in this capacity, helps to guide the future direction of Java and OpenJDK.

In addition to its work within individual OpenJDK communities, Red Hat leads the upstream development of Shenandoah, a high-performance garbage collector that is now part of OpenJDK 12.

In December 2018, Red Hat announced commercial support for OpenJDK on Microsoft Windows. Red Hat plans to launch OpenJDK in a Microsoft installer in the coming weeks and distribute IcedTea-Web, the free software implementation of Java Web Start, as part of the Windows OpenJDK distribution. JDK Mission Control is available as part of Red Hat Software Collections and for Windows through the Red Hat Customer Portal, enabling developers and administrators to collect and analyze data from Java applications running locally or deployed in production environments.

Supporting Quotes

Mike Piech, vice president and general manager, Middleware, Red Hat“Java is in a renaissance moment. It continues to evolve and be a key component of new, emerging architectures. There is a developer hunger to bring Java into the next generation of development, and Red Hat is a leader in this movement through our involvement in the OpenJDK project. We are helping to lead the way in our efforts to enable users of JDK to have support and innovation in their existing environments. Red Hat remains committed to Java and is excited to have the opportunity to help steward the OpenJDK community.”

Michael Azoff, distinguished analyst, Infrastructure Solutions, Ovum"The future leadership and control of Java is carefully being managed by current Java SE owner Oracle; this care reflects the importance of Java as an enterprise programming language and platform. Clearly, Oracle wants change, and while it owns Java SE it has handed Java EE to the Eclipse foundation, which has renamed it Jakarta EE. Red Hat, a significant contributor to the OpenJDK, has stepped up and is stewarding both OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11, which will converge with the Oracle JDK. My guess is we can expect more news on the transition of Java stewardship over the next few years and I believe Red Hat is a safe pair of hands to take on that role. It’s also a better fit with Java being open source and Red Hat being a leader in the open source software community."

Additional Resources

  • Read the announcement on Red Hat introducing commercial support for OpenJDK on Microsoft Windows
  • Read the Red Hat blog on the technical transition of OpenJDK
  • Check out the OpenJDK archives on the Red Hat Developer blog

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About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to our pending merger with International Business Machines Corporation, the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in information technology spending; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; risks related to errors or defects in our offerings and third-party products upon which our offerings depend; risks related to the security of our offerings and other data security vulnerabilities; fluctuations in exchange rates; changes in and a dependence on key personnel; the effects of industry consolidation; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to meet financial and operational challenges encountered in our international operations; and ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

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Gaby BerkmanRed Hat, Inc.+1 978-392-2495gberkman@redhat.com

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