Progress report for compiling Java on Windows with gcc

[Julian Waters]

Hi all,

During March of last year, I came up with what was my first big idea
for the jdk, allowing one to flexibly switch between different compilers
for Windows: Supporting alternative toolchains on Windows (
https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/build-dev/2022-March/033756.html)

As time has gone on, this effort has eventually grown into decoupling the
compiler and operating system pairing in general as much as possible with
JDK-8288293 (https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8288293), but so far the
pilot experimental branch has continued to focus on the original Windows
and gcc combination, as an initial first start

I'm proud to announce that, as of today (30 April, 2023), the Windows JDK
can now be compiled entirely with gcc (only the ucrt linking variant is
allowed thus far, and this is unlikely to change), and is entirely
operational when put through basic testing

While this is nowhere near production or review ready as of now, I'm
glad to mention that it shouldn't be too much longer before any testing
with the proper testsuites can begin, and I'd be more than willing to
accept if anyone wants to pitch in to help with the
extensive testing that this will likely require :)

Some of the changes made in this experimental JDK have actually already
been upstreamed, in an effort to minimize the size of the diff in the final
review (Hopefully we get there someday!), not just that, corresponding
enhancements have also been contributed to the Windows distributions of gcc
environments, further closing the compatibility gap between the different
compilers. It's my hope that I'll be able to present clean Pull Requests
broken up per module to ease reviews sometime soon, or at the very least
hope this experiment can help further clean up JDK code to be of even
better quality

If you made it this far, thanks for staying with me, hope you have a great
day ahead! ;)

best regards,
Julian
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