Если внимательно посмотреть комментарии к той статье, можно обнаружить ссылку:
www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/07/oracle_java_ee_8 , в которой написано:
> Very recently, however, amid intense pressure from the community, IBM and Red Hat, The Register understands Oracle executives realized that the proprietary API route would be a disaster: it would cause too much damage to the ecosystem, and there was no guarantee people would use the new closed-source API.
So now it's back to the original plan for Java EE 8: it is likely Oracle will stick to its H1 2017 timetable for publishing version eight but limit the scope of its new features in order to complete the work on time.