support for Solaris SPARC < 11

[Ludwig, Mark]

I'm just expressing the view as an independent software vendor.  We have "enterprise" customers using web application servers (running Java code we produce) that have shorter end-of-support plans.  To stay on supported software, they get forced into upgrades.  I think the normal end-of-support date for Java 7 is before Java 9 FCS (not sure).  It is also true that the web app server vendors are slow to move; none have released Java 8 yet.

Such customers don't like to be forced into OS upgrades when they already feel artificially forced into application server upgrades.

The "hard spots" I foresee would be when security exposures are revealed that require upgrading Java, perhaps because the web app server requires it.  Since we don't produce Java or any web app server, we can only be a messenger to our customers about what they need to do.  For WebLogic, the pressure will land on Oracle either way in such cases.  I'm just surprised that an OS with at least four more years of support life from Oracle would not be planned to be supported.

Thanks,
Mark Ludwig

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel D. Daugherty [mailto:daniel.daugherty at oracle.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 10:46 AM
To: Ludwig, Mark
Cc: Zoltán Majó; jdk9-dev at openjdk.java.net; hotspot-dev at openjdk.java.net
Subject: Re: support for Solaris SPARC < 11

The Release Engineering build platform for Solaris is Solaris 11u1.
Traditionally that means that code built with that platform is only
supported on the official build platform and newer.

This is why we hung onto Solaris 10u6 so long as the official build
platform for JDK8...

I would say that Solaris 10 is not a supported platform in JDK9, but
I'm not an official voice at all... :-)

Dan


On 7/25/14 9:19 AM, Ludwig, Mark wrote:
> The Solaris 10 end of support date looks like 2018-2021, which certainly is after the JDK 9 expected release date, isn't it?  Therefore, I would think Solaris 10 should be supported by JDK 9.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark Ludwig
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: hotspot-dev [mailto:hotspot-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of Zoltán Majó
> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 10:10 AM
> To: jdk9-dev at openjdk.java.net; hotspot-dev at openjdk.java.net
> Subject: support for Solaris SPARC < 11
>
> Hi,
>
>
> I'm currently working on JBS bug JDK-8043913
> <https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8043913>.
>
> Problem: remove legacy code in SPARC's VM_Version::platform_features
> URL: https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8043913
>
> Do you or are you aware of anyone who still needs need to run or support
> Solaris SPARC < 11? I would need this information to fix the bug.
>
> Thank you and best regards,
>
>
> Zoltan
>