> According to Ron P, they are basically arbitrarily decided by sales and marketing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33039539 https://news.ycombinator.com/

> According to Ron P, they are basically arbitrarily decided by sales and marketing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33039539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33039539 From the link: > Oracle's sales arbitrarily selects some feature versions for which to offer an LTS service, and other companies follow their choice This does not seem to be strictly true. The release cadence is scheduled, with mostly predictable release times.[1][2] The idea was, if some feature didn't make it's way into this release, it'll just get into the next release (which is only a few months away). Very similar to how the Linux Kernel does releases - arbitrary in features, but not arbitrary in time. And while Oracle may retain a great deal of influence over the OpenJDK project, Oracle is not the OpenJDK project anymore. There are a lot of other voices to be heard that decide when and what is done. > BTW, [other companies] can choose to offer LTS even for releases that have already been made and retroactively make them "LTS releases." There's absolutely nothing special about them He's right about this. However, the reality is most companies offer the same LTS as was scheduled, with extra paid support for anyone willing to pay (and be stuck on) a regular release. [1] https://www.java.com/releases/ https://www.java.com/releases/ [2] https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roadmap.html https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roa...