Or is JDK just a term used by Oracle to refer to their implementation(s) of Java SE (Oracle JDK, OpenJDK)? What is even more confusing, in the Java SE 18 specification they talk about the "Java Development Kit" being the corresponding reference implementation. With that, do they mean the Oracle JDK or OpenJDK (since Wikipedia mentions OpenJDK)?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Development_Kit: "The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java Technology by Oracle Corporation. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API)." It is Oracle's implementation. – Cam Mar 30 '22 at 16:10
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"JDK" stands for "Java Development Kit", whereas "J2SE/J2EE" standards for Java 2 Standard/Enterprise Edition
The JDK comes with extra tools than an edition meant just for running applications. These extra tools include
- javac for compiling java
- javadoc
- jar
And maybe keytool

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Java Development Kit is the original artifact that Sun rolled out.
In 1999 they created three different lanes:
- Java Standard Edition SE for desktop development
- Java Enterprise Edition EE for distributed components. This included Java SE, Enterprise Java Beans, etc.
- Java Mobile Edition ME for mobile development
All are based on the original Java virtual machine and development tools.

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