Experimental Build Repository at icedtea.classpath.org

Tom Marble Tom.Marble at Sun.COM
Thu Jun 7 11:25:49 PDT 2007


Andrew Haley wrote:
> We have been working within Red Hat to replace these binary plugs with
> free software based on GNU Classpath and to remove the need for
> bootstrapping with unfree software.  This is important for a number of
> reasons, the most pressing being that only free software may be used
> to build operating systems like Fedora.
Indeed and we understand the importance of getting OpenJDK
into Free Software distributions.  The milestone today of
making a buildable IcedTea is a huge step in this direction.
Now the OpenJDK team needs to take a look at this experiment
and evaluate the approach to closing these encumbrances.

http://icedtea.classpath.org

> We have used the name IcedTea because JDK and OpenJDK are trademarks
> and we wish to make it perfectly clear that, while this project uses
> source code from the OpenJDK project, it is not OpenJDK.
I hope that in time the use of the OpenJDK trademark can be liberalized
such that builds which are substantially from the OpenJDK code
base can be called OpenJDK.

> I'm sure some people will wonder why we've set up this repository
> rather than submitting our replacements for the binary plugs to
> openjdk.java.net.  Sun hasn't set up a Mercurial repository yet, and
> we need a public version control system system to work in.  Also, this
> is not mature tested code, it's an experiment.  We've been doing this
> experiment inside Red Hat, and we know from experience that working in
> the open is better than working behind closed doors.
And we hope to learn from your experience... thank you for
collaborating with us so quickly on OpenJDK.

> The next question that arises is "will you be submitting these changes
> to the OpenJDK process?"  The answer is yes, we will, once the legal
> and technical issues are resolved.
The eyes will now be on the technical teams to understand and evaluate
the Free Software alternatives that you have proposed.
I would like to thank Mark Wielaard for taking the initiative to
start a dialog with the Free Software Foundation and the Software
Freedom Law Center about how Classpath code could be contributed
back to OpenJDK under the Sun Contributor Agreement.

> These "binary plugs" are not complete: they do not replicate all the
> functionality of the binary plugs used in the OpenJDK.  If you need a
> fully-functional OpenJDK, follow the instructions on
> http://openjdk.java.net/.  However, these "binary plugs" are
> sufficient to allow IcedTea to build itself without any software that
> is not free.  It's important to show that we can do this, if only as a
> proof of concept.
And this highlights the need for us, as a community, to continue to
develop and/or liberate testing tools that help us understand exactly
the functional, quality and performance aspects of runtimes.

> We'd like to thank the GNU Classpath hackers (and Jim Pick in
> particular) for sharing the infrastructure at classpath.org that makes
> this possible.  And, of course, for writing the code in GNU Classpath.
I'd like to thank you Andrew as well as Tom Fitzsimmons and the rest of the
Classpath & Friends crew who pulled IcedTea together.  (Would someone
please roll the credits???)

> $ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea
> $ cd icedtea
Thank you for using Mercurial!!!

> Full build instructions are in INSTALL, but this works for me:
> 
> $ ./configure
> $ make
Thank you for the autoconfiscation!!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoconfiscation

> When this completes you'll have a usable IcedTea in
> openjdk/control/build/linux-i586 or openjdk/control/build/linux-amd64.
> 
> Alternatively, you can bootstrap by building IcedTea twice, once with
> ecj/gcj and then with IcedTea:
> 
> $ make bootstrap
Sweet Software Freedom!!!

And thank you for using the OpenJDK mailing list disto-pkg-dev!!!
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Truly and Freely yours,

--Tom







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