AIX and OpenJDK

[Volker Simonis]

I think the prerequisite for a port can not be that there exists
access to it on "x86 hardware".

With this constraint there will never be an OpenJDK port to other
architectures like PPC/Itanium/ARM to name just a few.
(By the way, there once upon a time was a mips -porting project
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/mips-port/ which was hosted at
http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/openjdk6-mips and which seems to be
dead now although it probably didn't run on x86 hardware:)

On the other hand, I think it is valid to request build/test access to
a platform if there is a port for that platform. However I think the
modalities for such an access should be handled by the group which
leads the port.

The real problem with such an access is that the current Oracle
build/test infrastructure is NOT open and does not easily allow the
integration of external machines. This is a pain point since long time
and we constantly here that Sun and now Oracle is working on it (don't
want to blame anybody here!) - but it's just the way how it currently
works. After all it seems that we get a new bug tracking system REAL
SOON now. The next steps would be a new review system AND of course an
open, extensible(from outside Oracle), automatic build and test
system.

But until we get there, I think an AIX port project would be the
appropriate way to handle such changes. Of course IBM would be free to
make some build/test hardware/infrastructure available and if that
works pretty well it would probably accelerate the integration of the
port into the mainline.

Regards,
Volker


On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Phil Race <philip.race at oracle.com> wrote:
> On 1/31/2012 2:49 AM, 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.
>
>
> There's a lot of UI choices we make that need to distinguish between Linux
> and Solaris,
> often made on the basis of the "os.name" property
> So I seriously doubt that it will even be possible to know what to do
> without being an AIX developer.
> Do you have motif ? What version of X11? What's the printing story on AIX?
> What's the font
> support? What window managers ? Etc. etc. etc.
> Whilst you may be able to contribute the "status quo" what's to happen in
> the future.
> At least for Solaris one can simply install the x86 version on any PC
> hardware you have lying
> around and know that its identical to SPARC in all regards that matter to an
> app.
> So I think unless we have guaranteed continual free access to AIX systems on
> x86 hardware
> (does that exist?) that AIX can't be a proper port of the same stature as
> the others and
> I would vote against it without at least all of the above being resolved.
>
> -phil.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> 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
>>
>