CFV: New Project: Detroit

[Sundararajan Athijegannathan]

I hereby propose the (re)creation of the Detroit Project, with myself as
the Lead and the Compiler Group as the sponsoring Group.

The Detroit Project was originally created in February 2018 [1], with
the intent to develop an implementation of the JCP-standard javax.script
API [2][3] based on the V8 JavaScript engine [4].  This would enable
JavaScript to be used as an extension language for Java applications,
and likewise Java libraries to be accessed from JavaScript applications.
The Project never got off the ground, however, so it was dissolved in
September 2024 [5].

Here in February 2026, there is still interest in using Java and
JavaScript together.  With the rise of AI, moreover, there is also
interest in accessing AI functionality written in Python from Java
applications.

Some colleagues and I have therefore revived the original prototype
JavaScript script engine based on V8, and have also prototyped a Python
script engine based on CPython [6].  Using widely-adopted JavaScript
and Python implementations, rather than re-implementing JavaScript and
Python from scratch, ensures both low long-term maintenance costs and
compatibility for existing JavaScript and Python code.

We would like to move these prototypes into a proper OpenJDK Project
in order to accelerate development.  We expect to leverage and push
the boundaries of the FFM API [7], so this work will likely influence
Project Panama.  Over time, the Project may consider implementing
script engines for additional languages.

The initial Committers will be:

  Jim Laskey
  Sundararajan Athijegannathan
  Jorn Vernee
  Mikael Vidstedt
  Henry Jen
  Maurizio Cimadamore
  Alan Bateman
  Hannes Wallnöfer
  Jan Lahoda
  Jaikiran Pai

Votes are due by midnight UTC on Wednesday, 11 March.

Only current OpenJDK Members [8] are eligible to vote on this motion.
Votes must be cast in the open on the discuss list.  Replying to this
message is sufficient if your mail program honors the Reply-To header.

For Lazy Consensus voting instructions, see [9].

Sundar


[1] https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/announce/2018-February/000244.html
[2] https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/25/docs/api/java.scripting/javax/script/package-summary.html
[3] https://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=223
[4] https://v8.dev
[5] https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/compiler-dev/2024-September/027645.html
[6] https://github.com/python/cpython
[7] https://openjdk.org/jeps/454
[8] http://openjdk.java.net/census#members
[9] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/#new-project-vote


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