Release families are identified as the major releases of the Java Platform, Standard Edition, such as 1.4.0, 5.0 and 6. As of the publishing of this article, the Java technology end of life (EOL) policy has been revised to ensure support and maintenance of Java SE release families for a 3 years, or until a newer release family has been made generally available . Consistent with previously policies and documentation, Sun will post a EOL notice for each release family 1 ½ years prior to that release families End of Service Life (EOSL), indicating that the release family has entered into its EOL transition period. Once the release family has completed that EOL transition period, the downloads of the release family, which has then reached its EOSL, will continue to be made available through Sun's web sites, such as the Java Product Archive page. EOL notifications and EOSL dates are no longer explicitly linked to the availability of newer Java SE release families.
