Heads Up: JDK 7 Linux platforms moving to Fedora 9

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Kelly,

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 14:21 -0800, Kelly O'Hair wrote:
> The JDK7 early access binary snapshot builds are built from the
> OpenJDK7 sources, plus additional files and repositories we either
> cannot or haven't opened up yet (for various reasons).

Do you have a list of these additional files and repositories? Is there
anything for which there still isn't a free replacement available?

> This build process has been created over the years around the Sun
> JDK product releases, the official build process takes many hours
> and involves things like virus scans etc.
> Not sure it's worth exposing, seems low priority to me anyway.

Yeah, it probably depends on the etc. But build systems have a tendency
to get entangled with all kinds of local setups and installation issues.

Having a standardized shared build system that people can copy and setup
for their own particular environment does have its advantages though. It
helps the community feel in control of their own niches.

> To guarantee that a OpenJDK7 build only contained OpenJDK7
> we would have to do a completely separate build.
> Justifying this is difficult when the standard open source
> procedure is to effectively roll-yer-own, not use any built bits
> from Sun.

Yes, that is the route we took with IcedTea of course. But now that we
have proven that you can bootstrap the whole system starting with only
free bits it would be nice to unify the standard builds again though, so
that the default is the same for all of the community.

Cheers,

Mark