Hi David & Richard,

Per the JDK 16 schedule , we are in Rampdown Phase One [1] .

Please advise if you find any issues while testing the latest Early Access builds.

Schedule for JDK 16

2020/12/10 Rampdown Phase One
2021/01/14 Rampdown Phase Two
2021/02/04 Initial Release Candidate
2021/02/18 Final Release Candidate
2021/03/16 General Availability

Release Notes [2]

OpenJDK 16 Early Access build 28 is now available at http://jdk.java.net/16

Features - the overall feature set is frozen. No further JEPs will be targeted to this release.
Significant Integrations in b28:

Integrated JEP 396: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default

Strongly encapsulate all internal elements of the JDK by default, except for critical internal APIs such as sun.misc.Unsafe.
Allow end users to choose the relaxed strong encapsulation that has been the default since JDK 9.

Integrated JEP 397: Sealed Classes (Second Preview) with this release.

Enhance the Java programming language with sealed classes and interfaces.
Refines JEP 360 which was delivered in JDK 15 as a preview feature.

These early-access , open-source builds are provided under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception.
Changes in recent builds that maybe of interest:

Build 28

JDK-8256299: JEP 396: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default
JDK-8166596: TLS support for the EdDSA signature algorithm
JDK-8256718: Old tracing flags are now obsolete and must be replaced with unified logging

Build 27

JDK-8159746: (proxy) Support for default methods
JDK-8254631: Better support ALPN byte wire values in SunJSSE

Project Loom Early-Access: Build 16-loom+9-316 (2020/11/30) - based on JDK-16+25

These early-access builds are provided under the GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception
These builds are intended for developers looking to "kick the tyres" and provide feedback on using the API or by sending bug reports.
Please send feedback via e-mail to loom-dev@openjdk.java.net. To send e-mail to this address you must first subscribe to the mailing list.

Rgds, Rory

[1] https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-dev/2020-December/004991.html

[2] https://jdk.java.net/16/release-notes