Per the JDK 17 schedule , we are now in the Release Candidate Phase [1][2]. 

Please advise if you find any issues while testing the latest Early Access builds. 

• Schedule: 
• 2021/08/05       Initial Release Candidate 
• 2021/08/19        Final Release Candidate 
• 2021/09/14        General Availability 

The overall feature set is frozen. No further JEPs will be targeted to this release.  

• Features integrated in JDK 17:  

• JEP 306: Restore Always-Strict Floating-Point Semantics  
• JEP 356: Enhanced Pseudo-Random Number Generators  
• JEP 382: New macOS Rendering Pipeline  
• JEP 391: macOS/AArch64 Port  
• JEP 398: Deprecate the Applet API for Removal  
• JEP 403: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals  
• JEP 406: Pattern Matching for switch (Preview)  
• JEP 407: Remove RMI Activation  
• JEP 409: Sealed Classes  
• JEP 410: Remove the Experimental AOT and JIT Compiler  
• JEP 411: Deprecate the Security Manager for Removal  
• JEP 412: Foreign Function & Memory API (Incubator)  
• JEP 414: Vector API (Second Incubator)  
• JEP 415: Context-Specific Deserialization Filters  

OpenJDK 17 Early Access build 35 is available at https://jdk.java.net/17  

• These early-access , open-source builds are provided under the 
• GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception 
  
• Release Notes are available at https://jdk.java.net/17/release-notes  
• Changes in recent builds that maybe of interest: 
• JDK-8270866: NPE in DocTreePath.getTreePath() [build 33]
• Reported by jOOQ
  

Topics of Interest: 

• The latest Newscast covers 17's JEP 356: Enhanced Pseudo-Random Number Generators - Here
  
• The latest JEP Café cover 17's JEP 409 : Sealed Classes - Here
  
• A few updates to JEP 411: Deprecate the Security Manager for Removal - Here
  

OpenJDK 18 Early Access build 9 is available at https://jdk.java.net/18  

• These early-access , open-source builds are provided under the 
• GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception
  
• Release Notes are available at https://jdk.java.net/18/release-notes
  
• Changes in recent builds that maybe of interest:
  
• JDK-8225082: Remove IdenTrust certificate that is expiring in September 2021 [build 9]
  
• JDK-8251329: Zip File System Provider Throws ZipException when entry name element contains "." or ".." [build 9]
  
• JDK-8271359: NPE in DocTreePath.getTreePath() [build 8]
• Reported by jOOQ

July 2021 Critical Patch Update Released

• As part of the July 2021, we released JDK 16.0.2, JDK 11.0.12 LTS, JDK 8u301 and JDK 7u311 as well as OpenJDK 16.0.2 (publicly available)
  

Rgds,Rory  

-- 
Rgds, Rory O'Donnell
Quality Engineering Manager
Oracle EMEA, Dublin, Ireland