[1497] in athena10
Re: Replace Sun Java with OpenJDK? [Re: Updates to debathena-thirdparty]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex T Prengel)
Tue Mar 10 18:39:33 2009
Message-Id: <200903102238.n2AMcSsv012733@dit.mit.edu>
To: Anders Kaseorg <andersk@MIT.EDU>
cc: alexp@MIT.EDU, jdreed@MIT.EDU, geofft@MIT.EDU, debathena@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:23:35 EDT."
<alpine.DEB.2.00.0903101704120.15595@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:38:28 -0400
From: Alex T Prengel <alexp@MIT.EDU>
Anders writes:
>Can we consider moving to OpenJDK by default instead of Sun Java?
>(Packages openjdk-6-* instead of sun-java6-*.)
>
>OpenJDK is Sun's official project to open-source Sun Java. (It includes
>over 99% of the Sun Java code, with open source replacements for the few
>remaining proprietary components, which Sun licensed from other companies
>in a way that prevents them from being open-sourced.)
>It works much better than the Sun version in my experience, because it is
>better integrated with the system.
>It is possible to install both openjdk-6-* and sun-java6-*; I don't care
>so much about the latter being present, but I would still advocate making
>(leaving) OpenJDK the default.
Jon writes:
>If OpenJDK actually works, I would be fine with this. This seems like
>a particularly good time to try it and find out what breaks, and if we
>need to switch back to sun-java6 by default for the summer, we can.
>However, I will defer to Alex on this, since he knows more about the
>various requirements of packages.
I'm basically OK with this but have some concerns that some Third
Party apps might break as Jon mentions (though nothing immediately comes to
mind). I guess it's safe to have some things broken for a while until
Summer, so let's go ahead and replace sun-java6-* with openjdk-6-*; I'd
suggest installing all of the latter except *source* unless anyone wants
those.
If there is breakage, I'd advocate restoring sun-java6-* (but leaving
openjdk-6-* as default).
Alex
