Any plan to cleanup x86 arch names?

[Magnus Ihse Bursie]

On 2012-08-15 10:38, Dmitry Samersoff wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Currently we uses i386, i486 and i586 within x86 build.
Not only the 32-bit Intel architecture, but the 64-bit as well has 
naming confusions.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple to just replace everything with x86.

1) Some things have external requirements for their name, and cannot be 
easily changed (or at all). For instance, Java programs expect a 
specific os.arch property. Library names must be named amd64 on Solaris 
(as far as I understand). Marketing is likely to have their own view on 
what to name the packages. Etc.

2) Changing names on files or directories (unfortunately) makes version 
control harder. If files are to be moved around all over the place 
anyway with Jigsaw, we might as well fix some names. It is not clear if 
it's worth the effort to rename files before such a major restructuring.

3) If we should change all instances that we can, we still have to agree 
on *what* to call it. Not everyone thinks that "x86" is the obvious 
choice. And even if this is the most common view (I think it is), what 
about the 64-bit platform? x86_64? x64? amd64? I've heard people defend 
all three names.

I actually posted a proposal for naming cpu's in the new build infra 
some time ago (see 
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/build-infra-dev/2012-June/001019.html). 
It boiled down to:
32-bit Intel: x86
64-bit Intel: x86_64
Intel arctitecture: x86

(As reference:
32-bit Sparc: sparc
64-bit Sparc: sparcv9
Sparc architecture: sparc)

There was some follow-up discussion, mostly on how to identify what 
different kinds of names we need.

/Magnus