Bug#906785: version warping patch is overly aggressive

[Markus Koschany]

Hi Bdale,

we all assumed that OpenJDK 11 will remove support for source/target
1.6. After a discussion on the OpenJDK mailing list they decided to
postpone this change for OpenJDK 12. [1]

The current patch simplifies our packaging work because we don't have to
manually fix packages that still target older Java releases. Since we
don't support and ship Java 6 in Debian anymore, there is no downside
for our users because all packages work for them with OpenJDK8 or
OpenJDK 11. Frankly we have never supported your MacOS use case.
Security support for OpenJDK 6 has ended a long time ago.

> Frankly, I'm not sure having this patch in the Debian package at all is a 
> good idea.  Isn't it better to let javac itself emit an error message if/when
> a version actually becomes supported, and let the developer learn about
> versions and how to update their ancient assertions when needed rather than
> hide this problem?

I think the patch could be removed for OpenJDK 11 but should be applied
for OpenJDK 12 again. All build tools already emit a deprecation warning
for source/target 1.6, so developers and users should be aware of it,
and it is certain now that OpenJDK 11 will be the last JDK that supports
1.6.

Regards,

Markus

[1] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-dev/2018-May/001190.html

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 963 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-java-maintainers/attachments/20180821/3508deff/attachment.sig>