[ilikehurdles]

Because of LTS. I don't consider a new release every few months very stable, and updating regularly just creates churn for no realized value. Additionally, any LTS release is going to get more thoroughly attacked, vetted, and secured. Despite best efforts, minor GC and JVM quirks tend to sneak in here and there with new versions. Maybe it doesn't affect people who write Java directly, but other JVM languages tend to be impacted more directly.

[pron]

All OpenJDK versions are created equal. Vendors provide LTS services for arbitrarily chosen versions, sometimes after the fact (Azul now offer LTS for 13, while Oracle and others have LTS for 11). There are several reasons to use the current JDK. First, if you don't have a paid LTS service, the current JDK is simply safer. There are about 20-50x more OpenJDK developers working and testing JDK 14 than JDK 11 (and those who work on JDK 11 are split among different projects: Oracle's 11u ≠ Zulu 11u ≠ Red Hat's 11u ≠ Corretto 11u), while some free LTS offerings backport a huge number of changes. Second, you get to enjoy some significant performance, footprint and serviceability improvements.

[zokier]

> All OpenJDK versions are created equal

Not really. If they were then jdk12u would not be [READ-ONLY] and jdk11u still open here https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk-updates

[pron]

After two patches led by Oracle, there's a call for volunteers to see if anyone is interested in continuing an Updates Project. But the original version itself is not written with that intent (nor is it known in advance whether anyone will step up). You will find no mention of 11 being in itself special in any way here, https://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk/11/ and anyone can start an Updates Project for any version.