Review OSX universal mode patch

[Mike Swingler]

On May 10, 2012, at 7:21 AM, Henri Gomez wrote:

>> I haven't seen anyone here sign up to maintain a universal/32 bit 7u on Mac OS X so far.
>> Without a plausible commitment to do that work, I don't think that it makes sense to add a
>> new platform to this Project.
> 
> To me it's an unilateral decision.
> 
> Did someone ever ask to OSX users if they need have 32bits JVM, next to 64bits ?
> Or even if they want an universal 32/64bits VM like they used to have
> with Apple JVM 1.6 ?
> 
> It's not the way an OpenSource project should deal with its community,
> users community and not the way I understand OSS.

Frankly, an Open Source project is not run by it's users - it's run by it's developers. If no developers come forward to actively support 32-bit, then the only possible outcome is for it to be dropped. If this is unacceptable to the users, they may choose to become developers and either contribute their expertise, or fork the project.

Apple provide a 32/64 Universal implementation, but Oracle has only committed to shipping a 64-bit only implementation for their proprietary product. The OpenJDK product should be build-able for 32 or 32/64 Universal by anyone else, and should accept contributions to it's maintenance, but if nobody is signing up to keep forward-porting the changes - they don't have a future.

Am I missing something here?
Mike Swingler
Apple Inc.