----- Original Message ----- > On 03/14/2013 02:44 PM, Andrew Hughes wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > >> On 03/13/2013 07:47 PM, Andrew Hughes wrote: > >>> ----- Original Message ----- > >>>> Oracle ended public updates of JDK6 at the end of last month. > >>>> Many > >>>> people seem to have concluded that the OpenJDK6 project will > >>>> therefore > >>>> end at the same time. This is incorrect: OpenJDK6 will > >>>> continue, > >>>> but > >>>> will be maintained by the community outside Oracle. > >>> > >>> 1. Oracle had three main roles in relation to OpenJDK 6; acting > >>> as > >>> gatekeeper over which patches were accepted into the repository, > >>> providing security updates and making releases. The third of > >>> these > >>> doesn't seem to be addressed above. Will new releases of OpenJDK > >>> 6 > >>> be made? IcedTea for OpenJDK 6 uses release tarballs as a base > >>> so, > >>> unless there are further releases, none of the changes made > >>> upstream > >>> in OpenJDK 6 will be consumed by IcedTea downstream. I believe > >>> we > >>> are already overdue a new release as there is no release of > >>> OpenJDK > >>> 6 containing the last three sets of security updates. > >> > >> Indeed, we need to make a new release of OpenJDK 6 with the > >> security > >> patches. There may be infrastructure issues here as we don't > >> AFAIK > >> have access to Oracle servers on which to place release tarballs. > >> Or > >> do we? > > > > Not as far as I know, but I don't see how it matters where they are > > located, > > as long as people are notified of the location. > > > > I'm more concerned that they happen promptly and tarballs are > > produced with > > the same form and contents. Hopefully, there is some obscure > > Makefile target > > that creates them but I'm not aware of it offhand. > > OK. > > >>> 2. What many people actually see as OpenJDK 6 at present, in the > >>> form of their GNU/Linux distribution package, is actually IcedTea > >>> for OpenJDK 6. Unlike 7, where the changes in IcedTea are just > >>> to > >>> make it "distro-ready" (using system libraries, etc.), there are > >>> now so many backports and other fixes local to IcedTea 6 that it > >>> is effectively a different beast altogether. Will OpenJDK 6 be > >>> open to accepting some of these fixes, many of which were added > >>> to > >>> the proprietary version of JDK 6 maintained by Oracle a long time > >>> ago, so the two can eventually be in sync? > >> > >> That would, in my view, be a huge waste of effort. It also risks > >> breaking things for no net gain. > > > > The gain would be to shift the focus from IcedTea6 to OpenJDK6. > > Pretty much no-one uses OpenJDK6 directly, as far as I'm aware. > > All > > the distro packages I've seen use IcedTea6 to build it with these > > patches applied. When I last tried OpenJDK6, I had to push four > > changesets upstream just to get it to build on a modern system. > > > > If things were broken with these patches, we'd surely know about it > > because everyone using OpenJDK 6 packages is using them with these > > patches. > > > > I agree it's a lot of wasted effort for no technical gain. It > > would > > be simpler and easier to just stick with IcedTea. But that does > > make OpenJDK 6 a bit pointless, to be frank. > > I think we'll have to agree to differ on that question. >
Ok. Maybe you could explain what kind of changes you do foresee going into OpenJDK? Changes from IcedTea6 were proceeding upstream under Oracle's leadership (albeit very slowly) and your original e-mail suggested the acceptance policy, in general, wouldn't be changing. > Andrew. > > -- Andrew :) Free Java Software Engineer Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com) PGP Key: 248BDC07 (https://keys.indymedia.org/) Fingerprint = EC5A 1F5E C0AD 1D15 8F1F 8F91 3B96 A578 248B DC07
