Java SE 6 Final Public update from Oracle, Forces Update to Java SE 7

Way back in February 2011, Oracle announced the End of Public Updates for Java SE 6 products which originally would have been in July 2012.  Well that has been extended two times to November 2012 and now February 2013.

Oracle announced in early December 2012 in a blog post that they will end public support for Java SE 6 after 19 February 2013.  This means that after 19 February 2013, all new security updates, patches and fixes for Java SE 6 and Java SE 5 will only be available through My Oracle Support and will thus require a commercial license with Oracle (in other words a paying customer).  In a related article released today 01/31/2013 concerning Java SE 6 retirement (Oracle Will Stop Providing Security Updates for Java 6 Next Month), it clarifies a point that the original Oracle blog post did not mention.  Oracle plans to start pushing JRE7 to existing customers automatically via Java Updates as announced in “Java 6 Auto-Update to Java 7 FAQ”.  Note that the auto-update to JRE7 only affects Windows systems.

Ready or not, you will have to consider updating to Java SE 7 within the next month or so.  At a minimum for Java security and open source licensing considerations.  If you are on the Linux/Unix platform, OpenJDK is an excellent alternative JRE/JDK to consider.   It works fine with Eclipse IDE in my experience.  Too bad, Apache Harmony is not up to par with the Sun/Oracle/OpenJDK feature set.  This would have been another alternative JRE/JDK option.

At any rate, you just need to be aware that public Java SE 6 support from Oracle has been on the chopping block for some time and will eventually take place.  Upgrading to Java SE 7 should be on your plans for your future Java systems configuration beyond February2013.