RFR: JDK-8200132: Remove jre images and bundles

[Alan Bateman]

On 01/06/2018 23:02, Erik Joelsson wrote:
> Since JDK 9 and modules, the idea of a prebuilt JRE is no longer 
> providing much value. The idea is rather that you link together an 
> image with the modules and settings you actually need, either with or 
> without your application. For this reason oracle will no longer ship 
> JRE images that differ content wise to the JDK image in JDK 11 and we 
> would like to remove them from the OpenJDK build to reduce complexity.
>
> Bug: https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8200132
>
> Webrev: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~erikj/8200132/webrev.01/
You are right that moving to modules has blurred the historical 
distinction between what we used to know as the JDK and JRE and I 
completely agree that the JRE is now a relic and just not interesting 
since JDK 9. However, dropping the ability to build the "jre" image is a 
significant change and I think will need to be socialized more widely as 
it will likely impact downstream installers and other consumers of the 
build. It may even need a JEP.

-Alan