Foojay (Friends Of OpenJDK)

Foojay (Friends of OpenJDK)
	One of the logos used for the Foojay website
Founded	April 2020
Founder	Geertjan Wielenga and Azul Systems team
Type	Community platform, Technical resource
Purpose	Java ecosystem information, OpenJDK distribution discovery
Location	Online;
Website	foojay.io

Foojay.io (Friends of OpenJDK) is a community-driven platform and technical resource hub for the Java ecosystem, launched with a first blog post "Foojay: A Place for Friends of OpenJDK". Retrieved 2026-01-05. on April 25, 2020. The platform serves as a central information repository for Java developers ("About Foojay". foojay.io. Retrieved 2026-01-05.) using OpenJDK and related technologies, providing articles, podcasts, tutorials, and the DiscoAPI for discovering OpenJDK distributions. "Foojay.io Content on InfoQ". InfoQ. Retrieved 2026-01-05.

Foojay.io is maintained by contributors from across the Java community, including multiple Java Champions and representatives from major technology companies.

History

Founding (2020)

Foojay.io was launched in April 2020 by Geertjan Wielenga and colleagues at Azul Systems to consolidate Java community information and address developer challenges in navigating OpenJDK distributions.

Growth and adoption

The platform established several key initiatives:

Launch of the DiscoAPI for programmatic access to OpenJDK distribution information"DiscoAPI GitHub Repository". GitHub. Retrieved 2026-01-05.
Developer room at FOSDEM
Integration of DiscoAPI into major development tools including SDKMAN!, Gradle, and JBang!
Launch of the Foojay Podcast featuring Java community interviews
Creation of foojay.social, a Mastodon instance for the Java community Frank Delporte (2023-01-13). "Foojay.social: A Mastodon Server for the Java Community". DZone. Retrieved 2026-01-05.

On January 2026, Foojay had published over 1,800 "articles". Retrieved 2026-01-05. from more than 300 "contributing authors". Retrieved 2026-01-05..

Technical infrastructure

DiscoAPI

The Foojay DiscoAPI (Discovery API) is a REST API providing programmatic access to information about OpenJDK distributions. As of August 2023, the database contained information about 89,352 OpenJDK packages from over 20 distributions.Frank Delporte (2023-09-12). "The DiscoAPI Helps You To Find Any OpenJDK Distribution". foojay.io. Retrieved 2026-01-05.

The API has been integrated into numerous development tools:

SDKMAN! - JDK version management
Gradle - Build tool JVM toolchain provisioning
JBang - Java scripting tool
IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and Visual Studio Code plugins
Paketo buildpacks for cloud-native applications

The DiscoAPI supports queries for:

JDK and JRE packages across all major distributions
Operating systems, architectures, and package formats
Long Term Support (LTS) and Early Access (EA) information
Direct download links
Licensing and usage restrictions

Content and community

Foojay Today

The Foojay Today blog features technical content from over 300 authors, including:

Java Champions and community leaders
Conference speakers and organizers
Open source project maintainers
Professional Java developers

Content covers Java development, OpenJDK projects, tutorials, and community interviews.

Foojay Podcast

The "Foojay Podcast". Retrieved 2026-01-05., mainly hosted by Frank Delporte, provides:

Interviews with Java Champions and technology leaders
Conference coverage from Devoxx, JFall, JCON, and other events
Discussion of Java ecosystem developments
Regular episodes are available on YouTube and major podcast platforms

Community engagement

FOSDEM participation: Foojay maintained an annual "Friends of OpenJDK" developer room at FOSDEM, Europe's largest open source conference, featuring presentations on OpenJDK tools, Java technologies, and community projects. "FOSDEM 2021 - Friends of OpenJDK devroom". FOSDEM. Retrieved 2026-01-05., "FOSDEM 2022 - Friends of OpenJDK devroom". FOSDEM. Retrieved 2026-01-05., "FOSDEM 2023 - Friends of OpenJDK devroom". FOSDEM. Retrieved 2026-01-05.

Foojay.social: A Mastodon instance dedicated to the Java/JVM/OpenJDK community, launched November 2022.

Organization

Foojay.io operates as a community initiative with an advisory board including representatives from:

Azul Systems
Contrast Security
DataStax
Datadog
JFrog
OpenValue
Payara
Vaadin
Snyk

Recognition

The platform has gained recognition through:

Multi-year developer room at FOSDEM
Integration of DiscoAPI into major development tools
Coverage in technical publications including InfoQ and DZone. "The Payara Monthly Catch: February 2021". Payara Blog. 2021-03-03. Retrieved 2026-01-05. Foojay is a nascent-but-evolving-at-warp-speed Java information consolidation site for everyone
Content contributions from over 250 authors, including multiple Java Champions

References

External links

Category:Java platform Category:Computing websites Category:2020 establishments Category:Software developer communities

This article "Foojay (Friends Of OpenJDK)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Foojay (Friends Of OpenJDK). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.