New candidate JEP: 362: Deprecate the Solaris and SPARC Ports

[Andrew Dinn]

On 28/09/2019 11:02, Peter Firmstone wrote:
> Crazy idea, builds should be tested on as many architectures as possible
> for debugging.  I hope this gets downvoted.

That seems to me to be a very one-sided perspective you are offering and
an unwarranted if not extreme conclusion (insanity? really?).

Whatever the benefits to this project of being able to run on SPARC (and
ignoring, for now, the likelihood that the benefits of maintaining the
port are probably better gauged in terms of the value to users) your
conclusion ignores the cost of maintaining the port, not just the
maintenance outlay itself but the consequent lost opportunity cost. I
think a more thoughtful and balanced judgement is needed here.

> I've actually solved a lot of Java concurrency bugs using Solaris Sparc
> I couldn't with other architectures.   That means without it, we would
> still be trying to solve those bugs.

I'd be interested to hear why those concurrency bugs do not (or  even
cannot) manifest on Intel or AArch64, particularly the latter.

> I don't know why Oracle doesn't release a developer workstation, with
> affordable developer licensing, so we can continue using Solaris for
> this purpose.   There are just so many tools on Solaris develpers can
> utilise.
> 
> Oracle really should start up the OpenSolaris project again too.
Arguments about what Oracle should or should not do with Solaris and
SPARC hardware are not appropriate for this thread, indeed not even for
this list or project. Please keep your comments on topic.

regards,


Andrew Dinn
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