We're doing an ARM64 port

[Tom Marble]

On 10/23/2012 11:47 AM, Andrew Haley wrote:
> FYI, if you haven't heard about this already, we at Red Hat
> are doing an ARM64 HotSpot port.  We intend to submit this an an
> OpenJDK project.

This is fantastic news! Thank you Red Hat and thank you Andrew
for leading this effort that you got us dreaming about at your
FOSDEM talk [0].

This decision is very significant because:

- Now is the time to invest in ARMv8: hopefully we'll have
  simulators soon, silicon sometime next year and systems
  soon thereafter.

- Java succeeding on this platform (different architecture)
  will require a serious engineering effort into HotSpot.
  This investment will pay off directly for Java applications
  and for the amazing languages built on top of the JVM
  such as JRuby and Clojure.

- Both environmentalists and savvy customers will prefer
  the energy saving systems made possible by ARMv8. Enabling
  applications that run on Java / Linux / ARMv8 will be
  critical to driving competition in "green" computing.

- Oracle has signaled lack of willingness to contribute ARM
  work to OpenJDK

It's a shame that Java's ubiquity has suffered due to Oracle's
choice of withholding certain features from OpenJDK (e.g. the new
plugin) combined with the withdrawal of the DLJ bundles which
allowed Operating System distributions to package and redistribute
Java (albeit under a non-free license).

Having a technically strong, Free Software Java HotSpot implementation
on this important deployment target should forestall further
Java platform fragmentation.

Indeed it is in Oracle's business interest for Java to be strong
everywhere -- including on all of their current and future hardware --
so I hope that this new port will be warmly received.

Sincerely,

--Tom

[0] https://archive.fosdem.org/2012/schedule/event/openjdk_on_arm.html