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Re: JDK 10 Early Access b33 and JDK 8u162 Early Access b03 are available on jdk.java.net



Le 29/11/2017 à 10:32, dalibor topic a écrit :

> I'd agree with Matthias that the binaries of some builds are not by
> themselves newsworthy for the debian-java mailing list specifically,
> since Debian doesn't use third party binaries in its Java packaging.

Actually these binaries can be turned into Debian packages with the
java-package tool. The resulting packages can then be used to rebuild
the Debian packages and have a glimpse of the next compatibility issues
we'll face.


> I'd also agree with Emmanuel that it can be useful for packagers to be
> aware of upcoming changes in the JDK sooner, so that they can provide
> feedback and make adjustments as necessary. For example, the javah tool
> is considered for removal in JDK 10 [0], which may or may not impact
> some packages in Debian. For the corresponding thread on the Apache Ant
> mailing list, please see
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/ant-dev/201711.mbox/browser .

These API/tools removals since Java 9 are hitting us really hard. Debian
rebuilds from source a wide range of Java projects, some of them are
rather old, barely maintained upstream but nonetheless still useful. We
are often forced to port the projects to build with the recent JDKs
before the upstream developers adapt their code (and if they ever do).
We are happy to contribute patches but the process doesn't scale and
it's difficult to keep up. At this point we aren't even sure if we'll be
able to switch to Java > 8 for the next Debian release in 2019.

It would be nice if the JDK had a longer transition phase for the
removals. For example a feature should be removed in the upcoming LTS
release only if it was deprecated (with an alternative available) in the
latest LTS. So for javah that would mean deprecated until Java 11, and
removed in Java 12 (for the next Java 17 LTS).


> If not, then I'd suggest stopping further early access announcements
> mails to this mailing list, Rory, and sending them to Emmanuel directly
> instead, while anyone else interested in them could also subscribe to
> the quality-discuss@openjdk.java.net mailing list and receive, comment
> and discuss them that way.

I'm moderately interested in receiving these emails directly since I
already happen to read them on the Tomcat, Apache Commons and Maven
mailing lists. Having the mails on the debian-java list is an
opportunity to provide feedback in the Debian context and have more
developers joining the discussion. That would be lost with direct emails.

Emmanuel Bourg


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