Re: [gentoo-dev] Java 9 on Gentoo

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017 23:38:09 -0600
R0b0t1 <r030t1@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> Hopefully this is not a tangent, but the OpenJDK release is available
> on Ubuntu. I have tried to understand the IcedTea build process and
> failed, as I was hoping that it could be packaged for Gentoo before
> the official IcedTea release. I was not able to find a timeline from
> the OpenJDK project.

Gentoo is a from source distro not binary. It will be some time before
icedtea, some version support slot 9 will be available. There is no eta
for icedtea. That comes from directly from RedHat. The person who
makes it for the world does so on Gentoo, for RedHat their employer.

I tried for years to get others to make a path for them to be able to
become a dev and work in tree. Rather that work goes into java-overlay
and is proxied to tree by Chewi/James.
https://github.com/gentoo/java-overlay/tree/master/dev-java/icedtea

> You focus on Oracle's Java?

Yes, in brief, as the other will always lag. I would be some what
interested in a actual OpenJDK package. That could build with either
oracle or icedtea. Usually for production and business purposes people
want to run Oracle. I do not know many who run icedtea/openjdk. Though
I am sure they are out there. Definitely RedHat customers.

Also icedtea on Gentoo does not have OpenJavaFX. I am not
sure any distro has OpenJavaFX packaged. I am not aware of any ebuilds
ever for that. Probably be me someday if I ever have interest. Which
can bind many to oracle for JavaFX. Which includes myself.

Icedtea really is not a jdk but a build system. On Gentoo only it
becomes the name of the JDK/JRE. It really is just OpenJDK built
without Oracle. Ideally there is oracle, openjdk, and icedtea ebuilds.
You then build openjdk with oracle or icedtea via USE flag.

Icedtea will always lag from Oracle. There will always be oracle
binaries before others. Yes you can build the source against it, but no
one is working on that. Again Gentoo has what it does because of
RedHat. Really for RedHats own interest, not Gentoo. Gentoo just
benefits.

It would likely be a considerable effort to have a openjdk that can
build via oracle or icedtea/openjdk binaries. I think exherbo managed
that, I am not sure.

The lagging may get worse as JDK release is scheduled to speed up
considerably come March. Say hello to Java 18.3.... 
https://mreinhold.org/blog/forward-faster

> The Oracle binaries seem to work well for me and I have experienced no
> issues. Notably, Scala works transparently on the Oracle JDK 9. What
> kind of issues are you seeing? The biggest issue I have had is that
> some version tests do not parse "9" the same way as "1.8.0_152".

There are tons of build issues for Java packages in tree. From not
supporting < 1.6 source/target, The whole modules system. Changes with
class visibility and deprecation of sun.* classes. No tools.jar. Odd
build issues where some packages build fine under 1.8, but generate
errors under 9 that require code fixes.

A slew of issues that Gentoo already lacks man power to keep some stuff
current. The amount of work is pretty tremendous on top of the state of
the tree.

Out of some 160 packages I had installed, 48 failed, with some 600+ to
test still. There were more failures before some fixes. I am still
working on fixing those and there are likely a considerable amount
more. 

My overlay is already ahead of the tree in many ways. The tree has to
play additional catchup. The tree itself without my overlay may have may
more issues. I do not know. I am working on replacing all packages in
tree, not running them. I need them kept current.

> Adding Java 9 to the tree would help users who are interested
> experiment with the language.

The JDK/JRE could go into tree masked for anyone who wants to unmask. I
have been pushing for that for some time, but will only happen when
Chewi/James has time.

JRE is safer than JDK. There will be issues with JDK if set to system
VM and used to build Java packages on Gentoo. The mask should warn
about such, etc.

> As part of the first work on Python 3.5
> (very minor) I installed it on my system but did not add it to
> PYTHON_TARGETS. Is there an equivalent for Java?

Heck no, Java is not in my opinion an pain like Ruby and Python. Perl
is not either. In fact if I get time to re-write eclasses. I plan to
move the versions from in ebuilds to eclass. Making 1 place to update
source/target/release of a java package.

Right now Java is controlled via depends. The DEPEND version sets the
-source, and RDEPEND the -target version. Java 9 has a new -release.
The source/target has  long time issue on Gentoo. To trigger you build
with newer and run with older.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Java_Developer_Guide#Bootstrap_class_path


> I have read the bug discussing your retirement. It is not possible for
> me to ascertain what led to disciplinary action. The lack of concrete
> discussion on behavior to be addressed reflects poorly on those who
> sought disciplinary action.

The whole thing is a mess. Let me just say this, You DO NOT take action
against a recently resigned Trustee who stepped down mid term. Despite
within 6 months getting Gentoo a Bank Account, Legal again with New
Mexico (though never has had the same with IRS since Daniel), and a
public review of draft by laws such that they were adopted right after
I resigned. Which shortly after I was encouraged to retire.

Since then people have just been problems, standing in the way of
progress for no good reason. The world is fraught with social issues.
Technical projects are no means to solve them. Gentoo has suffered in
many ways, not just technically via Java, but also the work I was doing
on the Foundation.

I was paying close attention to FreeBSD then. It is interesting to see
where FreeBSD is now compared to Gentoo. One rose the other fell.
Gentoo is not the only project that suffers from such. Though it has
some unique things that have not helped it....

> However, I am not a very smart man. I am usually wrong. Hopefully
> someone who is much more intelligent than I can explain how I have
> erred in my opinion.

Its wonderful to be wrong. We learn more, or should... :)

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.