Java News Roundup: Lazy Constants, TornadoVM 3.0, NetBeans 29, Quarkus, JReleaser, Open Liberty

This week's Java roundup for February 23rd, 2026, features significant developments across the Java ecosystem, from new JDK proposals to major releases of popular frameworks and tools.

OpenJDK JEP 531: Lazy Constants Candidate Status

OpenJDK JEP 531, Lazy Constants (Third Preview), has been elevated from its JEP Draft 8329758 to Candidate status. Formerly known as StableValues, this feature proposes a third preview after two rounds of preview delivered in the upcoming releases of JDK 26 and JDK 25.

The changes include:

• Removal of the methods isInitialized() and orElse() from the LazyConstant interface, as they do not align with the design goals of this feature
• A new factory method, ofLazy(), that can create stable, pre-defined elements for all three Java collection types: List, Set, and Map

JDK 26 Build 35 remains the current build in the JDK 26 early-access builds. JDK 27 Build 11 was made available this past week featuring updates from Build 10 that include fixes for various issues. For both JDK 26 and JDK 27, developers are encouraged to report bugs via the Java Bug Database.

TornadoVM 3.0.0 GA Release

The GA release of TornadoVM 3.0.0 delivers bug fixes, dependency upgrades, and notable changes:

• A refactor of the IntelliJ project generation that removes the end-user CLI flag, --intellijinit, in favor of a developer-only workflow to ensure that developers can configure their IDE and more easily switch between backends
• A refactor of their GitHub actions to split JDK 21 and JDK 25 testing, packaging, and deployment

More details on this release may be found in the release notes for version JDK 25 and version JDK 21.

Apache NetBeans 29 Release

Apache NetBeans 29 ships with bug fixes, dependency upgrades, and new features:

• Improved initialization performance in the LazyProject class
• A resolution to warnings from an instance of the NotificationCenterManager class by synchronizing manipulation requests from a filtered list
• An update to the DefaultGitHyperlinkProvider class to support Codeberg projects

Further details on this release may be found in the release notes.

Open Liberty 26.0.0.2 GA Release

The GA release of Open Liberty 26.0.0.2 features:

• Support for Java Toolchains in Liberty Build Plugins that allows developers to separate the JDK used with build tools from the JDK used to run Liberty server and its related applications
• A resolution to CVE-2025-14914, a remote code execution vulnerability, affecting Open Liberty versions 17.0.0.3 through 26.0.0.1, that allows an attacker, as a privileged user, to upload a ZIP file archive with path traversal sequences to overwrite files and execute arbitrary code

Quarkus 3.32 Release

The release of Quarkus 3.32 provides bug fixes, dependency upgrades, and new features:

• Integration with Project Leyden
• Support for automatic service registration of Quarkus applications using a service registrar like the Quarkus SmallRye Stork extension
• A more graceful shutdown that avoids an HTTP Status Code 503, Service Unavailable, as much as possible during the process

More details on this release may be found in the release notes for version 3.32.1 and version 3.32.0.

Micronaut 4.10.9 Maintenance Release

The Micronaut Foundation has released version 4.10.9 of the Micronaut Framework based on Micronaut Core 4.10.6, featuring bug fixes and patch updates to modules: Micronaut Servlet, Micronaut for Spring, and Micronaut MCP. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes.

JReleaser 1.23.0 Release

Version 1.23.0 of JReleaser, a Java utility that streamlines creating project releases, has been released with bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades, and new features:

• The addition of a paths property to the ChangelogGenerator class and Changelog interface to support filtering of commits to only those affecting specified paths
• An update to the ChronVer class to allow for a more lenient time formatting rule as specified in the ChronVer specification

More details on this release may be found in the release notes.

Chicory 1.7.0 Release

The release of Chicory 1.7.0, a JVM native WebAssembly runtime, features support for:

• The GC Proposal for WebAssembly (WasmGC), that enables garbage-collected structure and array types in WebAssembly modules
• The Multi Memory Proposal for WebAssembly that allows WebAssembly modules to simultaneously declare and access multiple instances of memory

These new features put Chicory one step closer to full compliance of the Wasm 3.0 specification.

RefactorFirst 0.8.0 Release

Jim Bethancourt, Principal Software Consultant at Improving, has released version 0.8.0 of RefactorFirst, a utility that prioritizes the parts of an application that should be refactored. This release delivers:

• Removal of two unused methods, gitRepository() and listRepositoryContentsAtHEAD(), from the GitLogReader class that reduced memory usage of Eclipse JGit
• A resolution to a NullPointerException upon attempting a Git lookup due to the generated classes, and their associated history, that did not exist in Git

Further details on this release may be found in the release notes.

Jox 1.1.2-channels Release

The release of Jox 1.1.2-channels, a virtual threads library that implements an efficient Channel data structure in Java designed to be used with virtual threads, features notable changes:

• Implementations of non-blocking methods, trySend() and tryReceive(), added to the Channel class and the Sink and Source interfaces, for integration with non-blocking frameworks like Netty and Vert.x
• A resolution to a failure of a Release Drafter GitHub action on pull_request events due to GitHub setting the reference to a temporary merge commit

More details on this release may be found in the release notes.

About the Author

Michael Redlich has been an active member within the Java community for the past 25 years. He founded the Garden State Java User Group (formerly the ACGNJ Java Users Group) in 2001 that remains in continuous operation. Since 2016, Mike has served as a Java community news editor for InfoQ where his contributions include monthly news items, technical writing, and technical reviews. He has presented at venues such as Oracle Code One, Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, Trenton Computer Festival (TCF), TCF IT Professional Conference, and numerous Java User Groups. Mike serves as a committer on the Jakarta NoSQL and Jakarta Data specifications and participates on the leadership council of the Jakarta EE Ambassadors. He was named a Java Champion in April 2023. With 33-1/2 years service, Mike recently retired from ExxonMobil Technology & Engineering in Clinton, New Jersey with experience in developing custom scientific laboratory and web applications. He also has experience as a Technical Support Engineer at Ai-Logix, Inc. (now AudioCodes) where he provided technical support and developed telephony applications for customers.