General Information

Since February 2019 Oracle no longer provides free updates for Java version 8. However, Java 8 is required to run the GlobalTaxCenter (GTC) software. This will have the following effects:

• Should an official maintenance agreement be necessary due to compliance requirements or internal IT policies, commercial Java 8 versions with long-term support (LTS) can be purchased from Oracle and other providers (e.g. Azul Zulu, Red Hat).
• If such an official maintenance agreement is not necessary, the GTC can be used with a free OpenJDK 8, which can be downloaded from various vendors. 

Regardless of which of the above alternatives and which provider is chosen, Java 8 must always be used. The GTC is currently not released for higher Java versions. If current security patches are not to be dispensed with, LTS-JDKs should be preferred.

AMANA is testing the GTC with the OracleJDK 8 and the AdoptOpenJDK 8.

OpenJDK Options

AdoptOpenJDK: https://adoptopenjdk.net/

“AdoptOpenJDK is a community of Java user group members, Java developers and vendors who are advocates of OpenJDK, the open source project which forms the basis of the Java programming language and platform.“
Platinum sponsor (amongst others): IBM
Two JVM versions: HotSpot (Oracle) and OpenJ9 (IBM, Eclipse)

Amazon Corretto: https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/

“Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multiplatform, production-ready distribution of the Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK). Corretto comes with long-term support that will include performance enhancements and security fixes.
Corretto is certified as compatible with the Java SE standard and is used internally at Amazon for many production services. With Corretto, you can develop and run Java applications on operating systems such as Amazon Linux 2,
Windows, and macOS.” “LTS [long-term support ] includes Amazon’s commitment to provide performance enhancements and security updates at no cost until at least the specified date for the relevant release version (e.g., June 2023 for Corretto 8). Updates are
planned to be released quarterly. Amazon also plans to apply urgent fixes (including security) outside the regular quarterly cycle when they are available and ready to use.”

Red Hat: https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/

“At Red Hat, we intend to provide support for OpenJDK 8 to our customers until 2023, and our policy of always ‘upstream first’ implies that OpenJDK 8 will continue to be updated for critical bugs and security fixes until then.
Something similar will happen for JDK 11.”