Apple doesn't EOL the last OS version when the latest comes out. I think they mean they wait a few months to make sure all the issues have been worked out.

But that only works if you stick to old majors. At this point Sonoma is out for almost 6 months, so even if you waited a few months to upgrade to Sonoma you are out of luck now. You are either stuck on 14.3 without security fixes or you upgrade to 14.4.

What's the difference? Wait a month (or whatever) before upgrading to the next major or minor release.

My work laptop is stuck on 14.3 for a few weeks until they fix this issue. So what? Actual security risk is practically zero. Whereas if I update to 14.4 today the risk is that I can't do my job.

The difference, if I read gp correctly, is that an older major release would still get new security updates when necessary, but if you already are on the current major, which had been out without this problem for quite a while, you will only see security updates bundled with minor feature changes like the one that introduced the JVM incompatibility.

Not really an Apple-specific problem, it could hit anyone who supports multiple versions without opening that can of worms of allowing completely free mix&match of fixes and updates.

No difference to me. It's an OS update. My policy is to wait before installing any OS update on my work Mac, whether its major or minor. Just wait at least a month. So far I have avoided all of these bullshit issues over several years of updates.

The difference is those who still waited on the major update ("almost 6 months") would still be able to jump on some 13.x.y security fix on short notice, without breaking their JVM, whereas people already on 14.x who can't work without JVM are cut off for the time being.

Still no difference. I would not update to 13.x.y until at least a month later. Defer all updates.