The future of OpenJDK6

[Jonathan Gibbons]

On 03/13/2013 12:47 PM, Andrew Hughes wrote:
> 4.  Finally, this is just a thought, and I realise it may run contrary to your
> promise of long-term stability and compatibility, but I've been giving some thought
> to the long running issues we've had with javac in OpenJDK 6.  For those who are
> unaware, the javac in OpenJDK 6 is not the same as in Oracle's proprietary JDK 6,
> but rather an early development version of the one used in OpenJDK 7.  I've been
> wondering if the best way of supporting this long-term would be to use the tools
> from 7 in OpenJDK 6, with appropriate reversions to make it compatible with 6
> (defaulting to 6 source/target, having builds pass the 6 TCK), rather than continuing
> to maintain the hybrid we have now.  This would also mean we'd be able to benefit
> more directly from any bug fixes or security updates directed at the langtools
> present in 7.

You might want to bring this up on compiler-dev.

-- Jon