The upgrade is slated for an initial release candidate build today Credit: Steve Jurvetson With the initial release candidate build for Java 9 now published, Oracle has proposed that from here on out, only “showstopper” bugs be fixed for the production Java 9 release, which is due September 21. The proposal floated this week represents a further tightening up of bug-fixing goals for RDP (Rampdown Phase) 2 of the Java upgrade. The plan calls for fixing all P1 (Priority 1) bugs critical to the success of Java Development Kit (JDK) 9. Also, builders would decommit from fixing any bugs not new in JDK 9 and not critical to the release, even if they had been targeted for fixing. The proposal would defer any P1 bugs new in JDK 9 but that are either not critical to the release or, for good reason, cannot be fixed in this upgrade. Bugs designated P2 to P5 would be left to future releases regardless of whether they are in product code, tests, or documentation. That change may not be as dramatic as it first seems: A current list of bugs cited only one bug as of Thursday, a P1 bug pertaining to a load that bypasses the arraycopy method having the wrong memory state. Java