General thoughts on java@freebsd-8/amd64

[Greg Lewis]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 03:13:09PM -0500, Chuck Robey wrote:
> Greg Lewis wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 09:47:55AM +0100, Massimo Lusetti wrote:
> >> On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 6:11 AM, Greg Lewis <glewis at eyesbeyond.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I would say at this point that there is unlikely to be one unless someone
> >>> donates a substantial amount of money to the Foundation. ?The Diablo
> >>> releases are pretty expensive. ?You can run the one for 7.0 with compat7x
> >>> installed, with some limitations.
> >> Would you mind to elaborate a little more about limitations you're
> >> talking about?
> > 
> > If you're trying to use an application that dynamically instantiates a JVM
> > itself or uses its own JNI library rather than a pure Java application then
> > you're likely to have trouble since you're mixing and matching code from
> > different versions of the operating system.
> > 
> >> What is your thinking about the best option to run java6 on FreeBSD
> >> 8 right now?
> > 
> > openjdk6.  It needs an update to b17 though.
> 
> Really?  Greg, I'm runnning the port labelled "jkd16", and with that
> as a base, I've been running eclipse with great success, but I know
> I'm going to *have* to upgrade sometime.  Could you please tell me
> what's the relationship between the jdk16 port and openjdk?  I mean,
> is one of those in a somewhat parental relationship with the other?
> Are they related?  Will my experience with jdk16 have a good chance
> of being just as good with openjdk6?  I hope I'm not stupid enough to
> ask you to "guarantee" that, but with everything else being equal, are
> my chances good of this?

I believe that a lot of the openjdk6 port was based on the existing jdk16
patches.  The benefit you'll get from openjdk6 is that it is based on a
considerably more up to date version of the jdk6 code base.  If someone
has the time and the inclination, jdk16 could be updated significantly,
but that seems unlikely at the moment.  The down sides for openjdk6 are
that due to licensing restrictions there is now javaws or browser plugin
included.  If those are important to you then you are better off sticking
with jdk16.

-- 
Greg Lewis                          Email   : glewis at eyesbeyond.com
Eyes Beyond                         Web     : http://www.eyesbeyond.com
Information Technology              FreeBSD : glewis at FreeBSD.org