As the inaugural release manager of OpenJDK 6, a role I severed in for several years amongst other responsibilities, I felt obliged to send in some comments on episode #395's discussion of "Everyday OpenJDK."
First, the genealogy of OpenJDK 6 is complicated since it is a backwards branch from (Open)JDK 7. [1] I can provide more information if desired, but because of this branching the relationship between corresponding parts of code in the 6 update release and OpenJDK 6 differs by technology area and over time. [2] One quick point on javac in OpenJDK 6, the langtools team made sure all javac fixes applied in the 6 update train were also present in OpenJDK 6. In addition, the OpenJDK 6 javac inherited fixes by virtue of being based off of JDK 7. Therefore, the javac in OpenJDK 6 actually has a proper superset of the javac fixes found in the 6 update train. In very rare cases, those fixes cause code that previously compiled to be rejected; however, the same rejection will happen when such code is compiled under JDK 7. The situation for OpenJDK 7 as compared to closed JDK 7 is much simpler. The code in OpenJDK 7 and its updates (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7u/) is very close to the code used to build the Oracle proprietary JDK 7 bits [3]. Easing and speeding up the build of OpenJDK are recognized goals with their own OpenJDK project: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/build-infra/ Going forward, for (Open)JDK 8 and beyond, one very helpful way for people to get involved is take the steady stream of builds of JDK 8 mainline http://jdk8.java.net/download.html or for Project Lambda http://jdk8.java.net/lambda/ and try out new features and send in feedback. It is even very informative to just run existing applications and their test suites against JDK 8 builds. The earlier problems are found, the more likely it is they can be addressed by the time the release ships. Cheers, -Joe [1] https://blogs.oracle.com/darcy/entry/openjdk_6_genealogy [2] https://blogs.oracle.com/darcy/entry/openjdk_6_logistics_of_partial [3] https://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/java_7_questions_answers -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
