os.arch "amd64" or "x86_64"?

[steve.x.northover at oracle.com]

Please don't change this.  People rely on values like this and you will 
break them -- guaranteed.

Steve

On 06/02/2012 6:07 PM, Scott Kovatch wrote:
> On Feb 6, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Michael McMahon wrote:
>
>> Following from the last message, I just want to get opinions on this question.
>> Currently, the os.arch system property is set to "amd64" in common with the
>> other platforms (solaris, windows and Linux) when running on an amd64/x86_64 CPU.
>> However, the property is set to "x86_64" in Apple's Java 6 runtime.
>>
>> So, the question is, what/if any compatibility issues could there be, if we maintain
>> this behavior? On the other hand there probably should be a good reason to change it
>> so it's different from the other 64 bit platforms.
> Web Start is the main area of compatibility that I know of. By changing it to 'amd64' developers would need to rev their JNLP files to handle the new value for os.arch on the Mac.
>
> For bundled applications Apple supported per-architecture JVM options in the application's Info.plist, but developers will need to rebundle with JDK 7 anyway. It won't be an issue unless we need to support universal binaries for non-Oracle-provided JDK distributions.
>
> -- Scott K.
>