"Converge [the] best features of HotSpot and JRockit" - what does this mean for OpenJDK?

[David Herron]

Or.. it could create a market of high performance VM's all using the same
standard compliant runtime

A blog post I read last week pointed to a JCP Executive Committee proposal
from Oracle to convert the JCP into an industry consortium.  Plausibly the
OpenJDK project could transition into an industry consortium providing a
runtime that every Java implementor uses.   Or...?

- David Herron


On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Volker Simonis <volker.simonis at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> yes, you're right. In theory the HotSpot VM could be replaced by
> another VM to use the same OpenJDK Java class library (i.e. the part
> under the 'jdk/' subdirectory).
>
> But in my post I was explicitly referring to the HotSpot VM itself and
> the fact that it could hardly be merged with the JRockit VM. The
> scenario you are talking about would exactly confirm my  fears: the
> HotSpot VM would be discontinued and the OpenJDK would degenerate to a
> class library (like Classpath once before). Not the best perspective
> for a free Java implementation...
>
> Regards,
> Volker
>
> On 2/1/10, David Herron <david at davidherron.com> wrote:
> > In Theory ...
> >
> > Theoretically JRockit could be changed to implement the same interfaces
> > HotSpot implements so that JRocket could plug into the OpenJDK runtime.
> > That would allow any VM to plug into the OpenJDK runtime.  This was the
> goal
> > of the Clean VM Interface project
> > (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/cvmi/)
> >
> > Right?
> >
> > - David Herron,
> > http://davidherron.com
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:43 AM, Volker Simonis <volker.simonis at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > In its "Oracle + Sun: Transforming the IT Industry" strategy outlook
> > > Executive Vice President Thomas Kurian of Oracle mentioned that Oracle
> > > plans to "Converge [the] best features of HotSpot and JRockit" (slide
> > > 10 of
> >
> http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/@ocom/documents/webcontent/044523.pdf
> ).
> > >
> > > Has anybody thought about what implications this could have for
> OpenJDK?
> > >
> > > My fears are that if HotSpot and JRockit will "converge" this means
> > > that OpenJDK will be abandoned, because JRockit isn't OpenSource and I
> > > haven't heared of any plans to open source it any time soon.
> > > Consequently, if JRockit is and will stay closed source, a convergence
> > > of HotSpot and JRockit can only happen in a "closed" version.
> > >
> > > Are there any sentiments regarding this topic?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Volker
> > >
> >
> >
>