This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: Should we remove java from the default bootstrap languages?
- From: Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>
- To: Diego Novillo <dnovillo at google dot com>
- Cc: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org, Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>
- Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:10:24 +0100
- Subject: Re: Should we remove java from the default bootstrap languages?
- References: <485A66B5.9030406@google.com>
Diego Novillo wrote:
>
> I posted this question to the SC panel at the GCC Summit today. I
> wanted to consider the possibility of making java a non-default language.
>
> Would the Java maintainers agree to this?
>
> The rationale is mostly that Java takes a very long time to build, and
> it does not seem to be used widely enough (maybe I'm wrong the latter
> point).
Heh. How widely is enough?
If this were to happen it would break repeatedly. It's used as part of
every Fedora and Debian system, even in the presence of OpenJDK, as OpenJDK
only runs on x86_)64 and 386 systems, although there's a (very slow) version
that runs on PPC. gcj is essential for bootstrapping OpenJDK on new systems.
gcj is the only free java on some systems, particularly ARM and embedded MIPS.
I'm seriously considering porting the openJDK library to gcj.
I wonder if some compromise less than disabling it as a default everywhere
is possible.
Andrew.