Red Hat have announced that they are taking over support of OpenJDK 6, just days after Oracle posted what it says will be the final freely available update, number 43, to its commercial Java 6 development kit.

Update 43 is the latest in a series of emergency patches to deal with a set of severe vulnerabilities that have plagued the Java browser plug-in of late. The release notes for the patch state that "Oracle recommends that users migrate to JDK 7 in order to continue receiving public updates and security enhancements".

For its part, Red Hat states that it “has transitioned into a leadership role for the OpenJDK 6 project, effectively extending support for the technology and its users".

Java 6 is still widely used in a large number of enterprises, a fact which Oracle tacitly admitted when it pushed the End of Life date for Java 6 back twice. Originally set for July 2012, it was moved first to November 2012 and then to February 2013. The firm now offers only commercial support for that version, and pricing information is available here.

Red Hat's focus will likely be closing security holes and fixing other bugs as they are found in OpenJDK 6. Most bug fixes that Oracle makes for JDK 7 will be applicable for JDK 6 as well, a point noted on the OpenJDK 6 website.

...bug fixes in JDK 7 that do not involve specification changes have presumptive validity for OpenJDK 6. That is, by default such fixes are assumed to be applicable to OpenJDK 6, especially if having "soaked" in JDK 7 for a time without incident.

Whilst Red Hat's move is presumably primarily aimed at customers using JBoss middleware and running OpenJDK on Red Hat servers, it does provide enterprises using Oracle's Java 6 a third option - switch to Java 7, buy Oracle support, or switch to OpenJDK 6.