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Meet Adoptium: Open Source Java Runtimes for Enterprises

Tuesday, March 23, 2021 - 08:00 by Mike Milinkovich

Today we announced the creation of the Adoptium Working Group, whose mission is to bring high-quality, open source Java runtimes to millions of developers building the next generation of enterprise applications.

Adoptium was created in collaboration with the AdoptOpenJDK Technical Steering Committee, and supports the Eclipse Adoptium top-level project. The working group provides the vendor-neutral governance, infrastructure, marketing, community building, and developer advocacy work needed to ensure timely releases of Java runtimes and strengthen the project’s community.

The Adoptium project continues the work initiated by the AdoptOpenJDK community. The project gives developers a trusted location where they can download fully compatible, high-quality distributions of Java runtimes based on OpenJDK source code. In a few short years AdoptOpenJDK became the leading provider of OpenJDK-based binaries used to power production workloads in embedded systems, desktops, traditional servers, modern cloud platforms, and mainframes. Adoptium will continue that mission as a vendor-neutral, multi-vendor initiative hosted at the Eclipse Foundation. We appreciate the trust that the AdoptOpenJDK TSC has placed in us as we become the new stewards of this amazing community.  

The founding members of the working group include numerous Java developers, as well as vendors such as Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, IBM, iJUG, Karakun AG, Microsoft, New Relic, and Red Hat. This strong participation clearly shows the value the industry sees in transitioning the widely adopted AdoptOpenJDK technologies and community to the Eclipse ecosystem. I would also like to recognize the efforts of Oracle in negotiating a TCK license agreement with us in support of this initiative.

Benefits for the Global Java Ecosystem

Developers and enterprises need a dependable source of open source, compatible Java runtimes that are fully supported with timely patches and updates. AdoptOpenJDK was created in 2017 to provide a community-based solution to this requirement, delivering open build and test systems for OpenJDK across multiple platforms, and delivering high quality binaries for use. Developers responded enthusiastically, downloading more than 240 million Java binaries from AdoptOpenJDK.

Moving the AdoptOpenJDK technologies and community to the Eclipse Foundation benefits the AdoptOpenJDK community and the many members of the global Java ecosystem:

  • The AdoptOpenJDK community can leverage our governance framework and intellectual property services, as well as our developer advocacy, marketing, legal, and hosting capabilities, to help ensure the AdoptOpenJDK initiative and community continue to flourish. The community can strengthen its vendor independence, while maintaining a strong relationship with existing sponsors and the Java community as a whole.
  • Developers and enterprises in the Java ecosystem have reliable access to fully compatible Java runtimes for hybrid cloud and multi-cloud enterprise development.

Adoptium complements the other Java-based projects already hosted at the Eclipse Foundation, including the Jakarta EE and MicroProfile specification communities, and open source projects such as Eclipse GlassFish, Eclipse Jetty, and Eclipse Vert.x.

I want to thank everyone who was involved in establishing the Adoptium Working Group. I also want to welcome everyone from the AdoptOpenJDK community to the Eclipse Foundation, and encourage you to continue building on the character and spirit of your great community.

Get Involved in Adoptium 

There are a few different ways to get involved in the Adoptium community at the Eclipse Foundation: