Maximo Open Forum

Hello,
preamble: this is just my curiosity, with no real impact on the actual functionality of the product.

The current plan with 9.1 (estimated release Q2 2025) is to update to Java 17. 

There's a lot of moving parts required for an update like this. One of the biggest items that isn't truly seen is the testing aspect. Maximo is a complex application with a lot of different capabilities that we want to minimize regressions as much as possible. And once we identify a regression or have concerns that a regression might exist in a particular area, there is research that has to be done to determine the best approach to take to address it. 

In addition to our code that potentially needs to be updated, we depend on third-party code as well. As an example, the version of BIRT we are using in 9.0 will not run on Java 17 so we needed to update to a newer version. That requires validating all of our reports, testing capabilities like QBR, scheduled reports, direct print, etc. Nashorn (which is used as the JavaScript engine for Automation Scripts) was removed so we needed to determine the best approach to continue to support those automation scripts as well. 

Thanks for your response.
Very understandable the question of regression testing, which I imagine for a product like Maximo is in the tens of thousands. A lot of work, but once done, it should greatly speed up the evolution of the product.
About third-party libraries like BIRT, I think it is more important to be able to update them quite frequently, as newer versions usually have additional useful features and fixes.