CAP (Compatibility and Performance Program)

CAP (Compatibility and Performance Program) is an early access program for Java Standard Edition (Java SE). As part of our ongoing work to assure that new releases of Java SE are compatible, robust and fast we are creating this early program designed to give key developers early access to our newest releases. This program is not open to the general public.

How It Works

Sun is releasing weekly snapshots of the complete source, binaries and javadoc for JDK new releases. These snapshot releases let you see the raw guts of the JDK as it is being developed, week by week. But this program will give you more as following:

• An email notification when a new build is available
• Regular Java SE release schedule update
• Early notification of new enhancements readiness and known issues
• A full-time Developer Support Engineer assigned to help evaluate issues submitted by CAP members and to file bugs with the right priority
• Feed any bugs, issues, or comments to the appropriate engineering team
• Early spec drafts and technical tips if available

The reason for this is it allows us the fastest possible turn around time. If you discover a bug, we can get the fix out to you for testing as quickly as possible. Going through a multi-week test cycle for each fix would make the process just too slow.

What You Get

At this point you may be asking why you would be interested in participating. The most important reason for you to participate in this program is that it will help ensure that your products run correctly on new releases of Java SE. You can warn Sun about changes in Java SE that break your app (or cause it to perform poorly) and Sun can help you work through any problems in your code that result from changes made in Java SE.

What This Program Is Not

This program is not a general-purpose developer support program. It cannot offer you any help in the design and coding or your applications. The primary focus of the program is identifying bugs that occur on the new release of JSE that did not occur on older versions. Secondarily the program will focus on ensuring that enhancements (such as performance work) are seeing the desired end-user benefit.