If you learned WebSphere administration on 6.1 or 7, version 8.5 felt like a breath of fresh air. It proved that IBM could move fast and listen to developers. Today, its DNA lives on in Open Liberty—just without the heavy GUI admin console and the expensive license tags.
Looking back at the version that introduced Liberty Profile and changed how we think about middleware. ibm was 8.5
Why IBM WAS 8.5 Was the “Liberating” Release for Enterprise Java If you learned WebSphere administration on 6
Here is the breakdown of why WAS 8.5 mattered. Before 8.5, WebSphere had a reputation (fair or not) for being a resource hog. It was the "full profile"—powerful, but slow to start. You didn't spin up WebSphere for a unit test; you deployed once a week. Looking back at the version that introduced Liberty