OpenJDK 6 b13 and JCK testing

[Joseph D. Darcy]

The JCK tests probe the conformance of a Java platform implementation to 
a specification.  For example, JCK 6b is the current test suite to 
determine conformance to the Java SE 6 spec.  Official claims of 
conformance require not only passing the complete set of relevant tests, 
but also meeting the other requirements spelled out in the JCK user's guide:
http://openjdk.java.net/groups/conformance/docs/JCK6bUsersGuide/html/index.html

Regarding the JCK, conformance is measured with respect to a binary 
rather than to a source base directly, which is sensible since a Java 
platform implementation will typically rely on and be affected by the 
properties of the host environment, including the OS, the C compiler, 
and the processor.

Previously Red Hat announced that using OpenJDK sources augmented with 
IcedTea patches, an OpenJDK binary on Fedora 9 passed the JCK and met 
the other conformance requirements:
http://blog.softwhere.org/archives/196

Amongst other changes, after incorporating community-developed patches 
(notably 6748251 "Apply IcedTea midi sound patch" in b13) and following 
the OpenJDK 6 build instructions, inside Sun a binary resulting from 
building the unmodified OpenJDK 6 b13 sources on Redhat Enterprise AS 
2.1 with gcc 2.95 (the official Linux build platform for Sun's 6 update 
releases) passed all the JCK 6b tests when run on Fedora Core 8 x86.  
That binary also meets all the other JCK requirements.

OpenJDK 6 binaries built from b13 (and later) sources on and for 
different host environments are now more likely to share those favorable 
conformance properties, but testing would be necessary to verify 
conformance status and to make any formal statements.

More information:

Free and Open Source Java FAQ on TCKs
http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/faq.jsp#k

OpenJDK Conformance Group
http://openjdk.java.net/groups/conformance/

-Joe