Hi, a few comments on the thread:
* For JDK 9, I have posted http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-updates-dev/2017-November/000024.html regarding Oracle's planned contributions. In short, Oracle plans to end contributing JDK 9 Updates to OpenJDK with the end of public updates of JDK 9 in March 2018.
As with OpenJDK JDK 6 and JDK 7 Updates Projects in the past, if a suitable party steps forward to maintain the JDK 9 Updates series further, we will discuss how to best enable such a transition. There were three such transitions of different groups of upstream maintainers in the OpenJDK Community in the past four years on JDK 6 and JDK 7 Updates.
* For JDK 8, Andrew Haley has indicated that Red Hat intends to support OpenJDK 8 until October 2020, per http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-dev/2017-November/000175.html .
* Assuming a two year release cadence for Debian GNU/Linux and a three year security support cycle for the distribution, Debian 10 might be expected in 2019, and have security support until 2022. That means there would be about 6 major JDK releases in the interim, one of which would be an LTS release.
My suggestion, in light of the current level of Debian OpenJDK packagers' involvement in upstream OpenJDK 8 & 9 update maintenance, would be to explore the alternative to fixing a specific default-jdk for three (or more) years, and instead to consider updating it to a new major (LTS or other) OpenJDK release during the lifetime of stable release, maybe even on a regular cadence as a 'rolling' default.
A useful tool in that regard would be tracking the CSR process (see ttps://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/csr/Main ), where changes impacting JDK interfaces are reviewed and approved (or declined) for future releases. You can find a list of changes approved for JDK 10 so far at https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8189750?filter=31600&jql=project%20%3D%20JDK%20AND%20issuetype%20%3D%20CSR%20AND%20status%20%3D%20Closed%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Approved%20AND%20fixVersion%20%3D%20%2210%22%20ORDER%20BY%20priority%20DESC which includes removed APIs and tools as well as new "deprecations for removal" in a future release, among other changes.
There is about a dozen changes so far from the list that signify removed deprecated or internal APIs and tools in JDK 10:
https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8189750 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8180947 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8186047 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8181190 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8187282 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8181042 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8191055 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8186003 https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8181745 cheers, dalibor topic -- <http://www.oracle.com> Dalibor Topic | Principal Product Manager Phone: +494089091214 <tel:+494089091214> | Mobile: +491737185961 <tel:+491737185961> ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG | Kühnehöfe 5 | 22761 Hamburg ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG Hauptverwaltung: Riesstr. 25, D-80992 München Registergericht: Amtsgericht München, HRA 95603 Komplementärin: ORACLE Deutschland Verwaltung B.V. Hertogswetering 163/167, 3543 AS Utrecht, Niederlande Handelsregister der Handelskammer Midden-Niederlande, Nr. 30143697 Geschäftsführer: Alexander van der Ven, Jan Schultheiss, Val Maher <http://www.oracle.com/commitment> Oracle is committed to developing practices and products that help protect the environment
