Re: [PATCH, libjava/classpath]: Fix overriding recipe for target 'gjdoc' build warning

[Richard Biener <richard.guenther@gmail.com>]

On August 20, 2015 7:35:37 PM GMT+02:00, Andrew Hughes <gnu.andrew@redhat.com> wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>> snip...
>> > 
>> > Having classpath (with binary files!) In the GCC SVN (or future
>git)
>> > repository is a significant burden, not to mention the size of the
>> > distributed source tarball.
>> > 
>> > If we can get rid of that that would be a great step in reducing
>the
>> > burden.
>> > 
>> > Iff we can even without classpath build enough of java to be useful
>(do you
>> > really need gcj or only gij for bootstrapping openjdk? After all
>ecj is
>> > just
>> > a drop-in to gcc as well).
>> 
>> All the Java compilers are written in Java (ecj & javac). So to run
>them, you
>> need a JVM and its class library.
>> 
>> It's those binary files which allow gcj to bootstrap the stack. If
>OpenJDK
>> had a minimal binary class library, it would be able to bootstrap
>itself.
>> 
>> But, as things stand, you need enough of the JDK to run a Java
>compiler
>> and build the OpenJDK class libraries. GCJ currently fulfils that
>need
>> where there isn't already an OpenJDK installation available.
>> --
>
>Actually, this makes me think...
>
>IcedTea already depends on CACAO and JamVM for alternate builds of
>OpenJDK. We could instead include the bytecode binaries for GNU
>Classpath
>in IcedTea, bootstrap JamVM and use that to bootstrap OpenJDK. That
>would remove our dependency on gcj and make IcedTea largely
>self-sufficient.
>It would also mean we could drop a bunch of conditional code which
>depends
>on what the system bootstrap JDK is, because it would always be the
>in-tree
>solution.
>
>We'd still need more than six months to make this transition though,
>as such a change really needs time for testing.

OK, so how about deprecating Java for GCC 6 by removing it from the default languages and removing it for GCC 7 or before we switch to git (whatever happens earlier?)

Richard.