Adapting IcedTea for the new OpenJDK build system (build-infra)

[Magnus Ihse Bursie]

On 2014-01-22 23:46, Andrew Hughes wrote:



>
> It's still far too hard to get stuff into OpenJDK upstream; it varies
> depending on what component you want to get it into and also, bizarrely,
> who is proposing the fix. I've had no problem getting build fixes in,
> especially with the new system, presumably because we're now well known
> and in contact with the people working on it.  On the other hand, I still
> can't commit to HotSpot, even as an OpenJDK reviewer.  I have no idea how
> HotSpot fixes make it from 8 into the update cycles, to the point that I'm
> on the verge of giving up.  I'm paid to work on this, but my time is still
> limited as mentioned above.  It doesn't surprise me we don't see many
> volunteers.

While it can be a good thing if IcedTea works as an entry point for 
bringing in fixes, with a low barrier, it is definitely not a good thing 
if it is too hard to propagate them further on to OpenJDK. :-(

> However, what makes me saddest is when I see someone post a patch who hasn't
> before and it is simply ignored.  No response at all.  I understand people
> are busy at Oracle too, but sometimes this just comes across as rude.
I agree, that is unfortunate. :-( If you know of any such actual cases, 
please let me know and I can see if I can get something to happen (if 
indeed late is better than never).


> The other big thing is there are no security release tarballs.  I discussed
> this with Dalibor in October 2012 on the 7u list, but it seemed to go nowhere.
> There are at least tags, but it means to get a release with just the additional
> security fixes, you have to pull that tag from each repo and hope you don't
> end up with stuff from the next release.  This could very easily be made simpler
> for people, but I got the impression that there was no desire to target end users.
I'm not very much involved with the release schemes, but if you think 
this would be doable by Oracle and helpful to IcedTea, I encourage you 
to check back with Dalibor  and explain the situation again.

>>> Is the new build system of any help?
> I have had chance to try it since b80 at which point both the new and old
> were present, but only one was usable.  I found it all very confusing and
> most of my time was spent fixing regressions, so I didn't have the best
> experience.  Finding two places that seem to do the same thing, but then
> you find one isn't being used any more, isn't helpful.  I understand the
> old build system has finally been thrown out (long overdue) so things
> may well have improved.

It has indeed. The old build system is gone (in JDK 8 and 9). And it was 
confusing for us too to have two systems at the same time. 
Unfortunately, there was a lot of momentum needed in switching all 
groups to use the new build system, which delayed the removal of the old. :(

> I'm sure the configure step now makes it easier
> for people building raw OpenJDK, but as we've had that with IcedTea from
> the start, it's not a huge boon for us.  What was odd was that some options
> seemed to be available in configure while others were still only in make
> variables; again this may now have been fixed.
The idea is that everything should be available on the configure command 
line, and only on the configure command line. We might still fall short 
of this in places, but none that I know of for now. One exception is 
hotspot, where the build system has not been rewritten yet. Esoteric 
hotspot features are still controlled by variables.

> People claim the new build is faster, but I honestly didn't really notice.
> Maybe this was just because doing parallel builds with the old build was
> so obscure that people didn't enable it?  IcedTea has for a long time, so
> I've always been building on 8 cores where supported.
The old build were, as far as I know, not able to build in parallel for 
most of the build, only on hotspot. You could run with -j, but due to 
improper dependencies, you were not guaranteed to have a correct result.

> I'm sorry this all sounds so negative, but, from my perspective, I
> have enough on my plate already without 8 coming into the picture.

It's good to hear all sides of the story. I hope you manage to get more 
time further on.

/Magnus