Supporting the OpenJDK11 port to FreeBSD

[Eirik Øverby]

> On 4 Dec 2018, at 21:52, Michael Osipov <1983-01-06 at gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> Am 2018-11-27 um 20:28 schrieb Eirik Øverby:
>> Hi,
>> Realized I sent this from the wrong address to the wrong address .. sorry if this comes across as pestering!
>> I hope someone can take a look at the below, or point me in the right direction.
>> Wbr
>> /Eirik
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>> From: Eirik Øverby <ltning at anduin.net>
>>> Date: 17 November 2018 at 12:24:36 EET
>>> To: glewis at FreeBSD.org
>>> Subject: Supporting the OpenJDK11 port to FreeBSD
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> we're a company that hosts all our code (payment- and authentication stuff) on FreeBSD/Tomcat and we're being asked by our devs when we can have OpenJDK9^H10^H^H11 support. Before you ask - no, none of them are capable of porting anything - they couldn't care less about the platform.
> 
> Same issue here: running FreeBSD, Java, Tomcat, and surroundings like Ant, Maven, etc.
> 
>>> What would be the correct way to offer monetary (or other) support to the FreeBSD/Java project in such a way that
>>> - the money is well spent?
>>> - porting efforts can get some priority and attention, soonish?
>>> 
>>> Not sure what kind of support would make a difference here, but we can throw all sorts of hardware at the project, and at least a man-month or two if that's what it takes.
> 
> I don't think that hardware will really help. What really helps is someone who can assist Greg or contact the foundation and remind them of [1], "Development of software for FreeBSD to benefit the user and developer community, including contract development of critical system infrastructure, porting of closed source applications such as Java(TM)." with your donation.
> 
> I talked with jmd@ about this gaining some traction for Java 11+ in FreeBSD by joining AdoptAJDK and assisting Greg with this huge effort.
> It just needs someone who will drive this. The first must be to get all BSD related changes Greg and others have made into JDK8u, no more bsd-port Hg repo.
> 
> Would you take on this?

Depends what you mean by "drive". We're stretched thin on the manpower side, and more importantly I'm not sure we have anyone who could confidently lead such a project. My thinking (or hope..) is that someone who has already led such efforts - with Java, specifically - could be enabled to work on this with some degree of focus for a useful amount of time if the bread-and-butter requirements are taken care of. Hence our suggestion to fund this work with a few man-months. If some of that (not too much, please ;) is spent planning the efforts and organising it, then so be it - we're fully and painfully aware that it's often the most costly part of any development project.

/Eirik