[pkg-java-blog] 01/01: Add initial draft wheezy-lts-and-the-switch-to-openjdk7.md

[Markus Koschany]

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commit 2c7d2c5fafec71f3cb65dd2ccd446e9ee8f78f52
Author: Markus Koschany <apo at debian.org>
Date:   Sun Jun 12 21:56:36 2016 +0200

    Add initial draft wheezy-lts-and-the-switch-to-openjdk7.md
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 .../2016/wheezy-lts-and-the-switch-to-openjdk7.md  | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 66 insertions(+)

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+Title: Wheezy LTS and the switch to OpenJDK 7
+Date: 2016-06-12
+Authors: Markus Koschany
+Status: draft
+
+Wheezy's LTS period started a few weeks ago and the LTS team had to make an
+early support decision concerning the Java eco-system since Wheezy ships two Java
+runtime environments [OpenJDK 6](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openjdk-6) and
+[OpenJDK 7](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openjdk-7). (To be fair, there are
+actually three but [gcj](https://packages.debian.org/oldstable/gcj-4.6-jre) has
+been superseded by OpenJDK a long time ago and the latter should be preferred
+whenever possible.)
+
+OpenJDK 6 is currently maintained by Red Hat and we mostly rely on their
+upstream work as well as on package updates from Debian's maintainer Matthias Klose and
+Tiago Stürmer Daitx from Ubuntu. We already knew that both intend
+to support OpenJDK 6 until April 2017 when Ubuntu 12.04 will reach its
+end-of-life. Thus we had basically two options, supporting OpenJDK 6 for another
+twelve months or dropping support right from the start. One of my first steps
+has been to ask for feedback and advice on
+[debian-java](https://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2016/03/msg00044.html) for
+the more likely choice of supporting only one JDK. We agreed on warning users
+via various channels about the intended change,
+especially about [possible
+incompatibilities](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/compatibility-417013.html)
+with OpenJDK 7. Even Andrew Haley, OpenJDK 6 project lead, [participated](https://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2016/03/msg00055.html) in the
+discussion and confirmed that, while still supported, OpenJDK 6 security
+releases are "always the last in the queue when there is urgent work to be
+done".
+
+I informed [debian-lts](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts/2016/03/msg00098.html) about
+my findings and issued a [call for tests](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts/2016/04/msg00070.html) later.
+
+Eventually we decided to [concentrate our efforts on OpenJDK
+7](https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160425) because we could be sure that for the
+majority of our users one Java implementation is sufficient during a stable
+release cycle. An immediate positive effect in making OpenJDK 7 the default is that
+resources can be relocated to more pressing issues. On the other hand we were
+also forced to make compromises. The switch to a newer default implementation
+usually triggers a major transition with dozens of FTBFS bugs and the [OpenJDK 7
+transition](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=openjdk-7-transition;users=ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com)
+was no exception. I pondered about the usefulness of fixing all these bugs for
+Wheezy LTS again and focussing on runtime issues instead and finally decided
+that the latter was both more reasonable and more economic.
+
+Different from regular default Java changes, users will still be able to use OpenJDK 6 to
+compile their packages and then the security impact is in general neglectable. More important
+was to avoid the runtime installation of OpenJDK 6. I identified eighteen
+packages that strictly depended on the now obsolete JRE and [fixed those
+issues](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2016/05/msg00007.html)
+on 4 May together with an update of
+[java-common](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/java-common) to announce the switch to
+OpenJDK 7 with a Debian NEWS file.
+
+If you are not a regular reader of [Debian
+news](https://www.debian.org/News/news) and also not subscribed to
+[debian-lts](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts/),
+[debian-lts-announce](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/) or
+[debian-java](https://lists.debian.org/debian-java/), remember **26 June
+2016** is the day when OpenJDK 7 will be made the default Java implementation in
+Wheezy LTS. Of course there is no need to wait. Remove OpenJDK 6 and switch now:
+
+'''
+sudo update-alternatives --config java
+'''
+

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