AIX and OpenJDK

[Tobias Frech]

Hi!
The following might be inappropriate here, but I found it very
surprising when I found out rt.jar contains platform specific code in
the classes that are part of the API. I would have expected all of these
special cases to be locked away in some sun.* classes.
As I spoke to other developers about this, they were surprised as well.
I thought I mention this here, just in case you plan to revamp some
stuff concerning platform specific builds.

Cheers,
Tobias

Am Mittwoch, den 01.02.2012, 12:00 +1000 schrieb David Holmes:
> Stepping up a level I think we need to address the way we currently 
> arrange our sources and build files along OS/architecture lines before 
> trying to integrate any further ports into mainline (including the OSX 
> port that is currently off-to-the-side in 7u-osx). The initial scheme 
> (Windows else not-Windows-but-lets-call-it-Solaris) simply does not 
> expand cleanly and we do not want an explosion of ifdefs in the native 
> code (I welcome the attempt to use capability-based schemes here where 
> feasible).
> 
> Relatedly we have two major upheavals to the source and build systems in 
> the pipeline: modules and the new build-infra project. These will have 
> enough impact on their own, without trying to somehow merge two ports 
> (OSX and AIX) at the same time.
> 
> So to that end a porting project with custom workspaces is the best way 
> to go in my opinion as it means the port can be created based on current 
> layouts and be made available to those wanting it, then over time, and 
> probably for post JDK8, get updated to handle modules and the new build 
> system.
> 
> Just my personal opinions.
> 
> David Holmes
> 
> On 31/01/2012 8:49 PM, Steve Poole wrote:
> >
> > hi all,
> >
> > Last year there was a discussion [1] about adding AIX platform support
> > into OpenJDK. I'd like to pick up that conversation and complete this work.
> >
> > To recap the salient points of the thread:
> >
> > 1: The scale of the changes to support AIX without Hotspot are small ( ~
> > 300 LOC) There are an additional 19 new files that cover AIX specific
> > build files and providing necessary support for AIX specific filesystem,
> > virtual machine and process attributes in the same manner as is already
> > done for Linux, Solaris and Windows etc. Generally the changes have been
> > coded as capability based rather than platform focused. These changes
> > are easy to understand and help towards improving platform portability.
> >
> > 2: Generally AIX is very close to both Linux and Solaris. As you would
> > expect we will help ensure OpenJDK developers do not break things where
> > they do not have access to an AIX machine.
> >
> > 3: This work will faciliate the porting of Hotspot to AIX but IBM
> > intends to focus on our own JVM at this time (as you would imagine). We
> > will make a binary of the JVM available for OpenJDK developers who want
> > early access on AIX of ongoing work in JDK8 and AIX.
> >
> > I said I would post more when all the changes under item 2 above had
> > been posted. That's basically now. I'd like to pick up the conversation
> > again and resolve how to get the remaining files into OpenJDK so it's
> > possible to build and run JDK 8 on AIX.
> >
> > I do not consider that the scale of these changes warrant a porting
> > project all of their own. Does anyone have a reason why I shouldn't just
> > start posting the additional files with the intention of getting them
> > added into the main JDK8 repos?
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > [1]
> > http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/porters-dev/2011-October/000363.html
> >

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