OpenJDK and VMS

[Simon Clubley]

OpenJDK has just dropped support for SPARC and Solaris (including on
x86-64):

https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/381

While there might be an argument for possibly dropping SPARC, I was
_very_ surprised to see support for Solaris in general ending.

If the OpenJDK team are doing this for Solaris, the obvious question
is how does this affect VMS ?

Is the OpenJDK port for VMS something which is going to be folded into
the main OpenJDK distribution or is it something which VSI will have
to keep updated outside of the main OpenJDK distribution ?

Simon.

[John Dallman]

Post by Simon Clubley
If the OpenJDK team are doing this for Solaris, the obvious question
is how does this affect VMS ?

There may be a different agenda here. Oracle own Solaris and SPARC, but
have no interest in SPARC/Linux or x86/Solaris.

They'd also prefer SPARC/Solaris customers to pay them for commercial
Oracle Java, rather than use free OpenJDK. Not all of the OpenJDK
distributors provide Solaris, but some do.

They won't be dropping SPARC/Solaris from Oracle Java unless they want to
lose most of their customers for OracleDB on that platform.

John

[John Dallman]

Post by John Dallman
They won't be dropping SPARC/Solaris from Oracle Java unless they
want to lose most of their customers for OracleDB on that platform.

Actually, they are dropping SPARC/Solaris from Oracle Java. Oracle Java
11 is the last version that supports SPARC/Solaris. While confirming
this, I found that all my previous Solaris contacts at Oracle were no
longer there.

While Oracle still says that EoL on Solaris 11 is 2034, it seems like
time to give up on it.

John

[Arne Vajhøj]

Post by John Dallman

Post by John Dallman
They won't be dropping SPARC/Solaris from Oracle Java unless they
want to lose most of their customers for OracleDB on that platform.

Actually, they are dropping SPARC/Solaris from Oracle Java. Oracle Java
11 is the last version that supports SPARC/Solaris. While confirming
this, I found that all my previous Solaris contacts at Oracle were no
longer there.
While Oracle still says that EoL on Solaris 11 is 2034, it seems like
time to give up on it.

Every indication is that VMS will outlive Solaris.

Arne

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by John Dallman
While Oracle still says that EoL on Solaris 11 is 2034, it seems like
time to give up on it.

Every indication is that VMS will outlive Solaris.

I still have several users who are running SunOS 4.1.4 because they don't
feel Solaris is ready yet.
--scott

[Stephen Hoffman]

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by John Dallman
While Oracle still says that EoL on Solaris 11 is 2034, it seems like
time to give up on it.

Every indication is that VMS will outlive Solaris.

Solaris, yes.
Though illumos is well-positioned to outlive OpenVMS.
illumos also means that some current users of Solaris have a more
familiar and more compatible path available.

[Bill Gunshannon]

Post by Stephen Hoffman

Post by Arne Vajhøj

Post by John Dallman
While Oracle still says that EoL on Solaris 11 is 2034, it seems like
time to give up on it.

Every indication is that VMS will outlive Solaris.

Solaris, yes.
Though illumos is well-positioned to outlive OpenVMS.
illumos also means that some current users of Solaris have a more
familiar and more compatible path available.

Not sure what the implied importance of "outliving" is but lot's of
things will probably outlive VMS. Some things have changed names
(kinda like the VMS/OpenVMS debacle) and others remain as they were.
There are still places running RSX-11, Primos and EXEC-8 (although
I think people today call it OS2200). And, of course, BSD is still
very alive and well.

To a lot of us, Solaris was a mistake from the beginning. It was an
attempt to ride the coattails of someone who was thought to be an IT
powerhouse who turned out to be more a flash in the pan.

If some of us live long enough it will be very interesting to see
whop the real long term winner turns out to be.

bill

[Arne Vajhøj]

Post by Simon Clubley
OpenJDK has just dropped support for SPARC and Solaris (including on
https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/381
While there might be an argument for possibly dropping SPARC, I was
_very_ surprised to see support for Solaris in general ending.

It is an indication that the Java guys consider both SPARC and
Solaris as dead.

Post by Simon Clubley
If the OpenJDK team are doing this for Solaris, the obvious question
is how does this affect VMS ?
Is the OpenJDK port for VMS something which is going to be folded into
the main OpenJDK distribution or is it something which VSI will have
to keep updated outside of the main OpenJDK distribution ?

If you click on the link to the depreciation then
they are pretty clear:

https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/362

<quote>
Alternatives

Just as with JEP 291 (Deprecate the CMS Garbage Collector) and JEP 335
(Deprecate the Nashorn JavaScript Engine), an alternative is for a set
of credible developers to express a clear desire to maintain these ports
going forward. If that happens before this JEP is integrated then this
JEP can be withdrawn. If that happens after this JEP is integrated, but
before the ports are removed, then a follow-on JEP can revert the
deprecation.
</quote>

That sounds to me that if the project consider VSI to be
"credible developers to express a clear desire to maintain these
ports going forward", then they could get VMS changes into the
main code line, but if not then VSI would need to merge
changes into every new release.

Arne