Java Development Kit

The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a software development kit for development of a Java platform application. The JDK is designed to be mainly used to communicate with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), but it can be replaced by other JDK-based languages which can communicate with the JRE and JVM. Furthermore, Java bytecode can be compiled statically directly into native code only with a JVM but without the necessity of the Java runtime environment running dynamically. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven OpenJDK which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are the Java virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for Java programmers. Oracle releases the current version of the software under the Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) license. Oracle releases binaries for the x86-64 architecture for Windows, macOS, and Linux based operating systems, and for the aarch64 architecture for macOS and Linux. Previous versions supported the Oracle Solaris operating system and SPARC architecture. Oracle's primary implementation of the JVMS is known as HotSpot.