Java 7 for Mac OSX (original) (raw)

Mike Swingler swingler at apple.com
Mon Feb 20 16:08:23 PST 2012

On Feb 20, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Henri Gomez wrote:

Since you'll have to bundle the JRE in your app anyway, would it be sufficient to simply compile the JRE for 32-bit from the OpenJDK sources? Is there a reason you need Oracle's proprietary binary? Mike, I'll be happy to know how to build a 32bits version of OpenJDK 7, since we're discussing OpenJDK7 not Oracle implementation.

True, OpenJDK should have clear switch in the Makefile to build for any architecture choice you want, and the wiki should document that. I don't recall who at Oracle switched the build to 64-only, but they should have left a switch to enable 32/64 building.

About QA testing, if there is resources for Linux, Solaris and Windows 32/64 bits versions, I don't see why OSX should have a different treatment.

For 32/64 bits support let me say that support was dropped without any discussion on public lists. And I recall OpenJDK 7 is aimed to be an OSS project where everybody could have its own voice. I built OpenJDK 7 for OSX for a least one year and I'm tired to see discussions or decisions taken under the hood. Who take this decision ? Apple, Oracle, OpenJDK community ?

Oracle decides what they ship in their proprietary binary. The OpenJDK community decides what support exists in the source. Apple had no influence on either of these decisions, but I do not advise putting effort into a legacy architecture or a legacy OS if it comes at the cost of time, focus, and effort that needs to be spent on getting a GM-quality product out the door that works on the current OS and the mandatory architecture (x86_64).

So, the question is, how was the build default'ed to 64-bit only, and is that easily reversible by passing a flag into make? If not, we need a patch, and no matter what, it needs to be documented on the wiki.

Regards, Mike Swingler Apple Inc.

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