Re: [PATCH] Delete GCJ

[Andrew Hughes <gnu.andrew@redhat.com>]

----- Original Message -----
> On 10/09/16 12:59, NightStrike wrote:
> > Could we at least reach out and see if there's someone else who could
> > be the maintainer?  I noticed gcj patches recently, so there's still
> > interest.
> 
> 1.  It's too late.  We have been discussing this for a long time, and
> we're now doing what we decided.
> 
> 2.  Maintaining GCJ requires a lot of knowledge of both Java and GCC
> internals.  There are very few people in the world with that
> knowledge, and I'm fairly sure I know them by name.
> 

+1.

> 3.  The Classpath library is very old and is unmaintained.  The only
> practical way to update GCJ would be to use the OpenJDK class
> libraries instead, but updating GCJ to use those class libraries is a
> very substantial job.
> 

Classpath is not "unmaintained"; we still fix issues which arise during
bootstrapping IcedTea, for example. Rather, it's an example of the lack
of interesting in updating GCJ that no-one has even merged the most
recent GNU Classpath changes into the GCJ codebase, never mind switching
it to a completely different class library.

If someone is genuinely interested in reviving GCJ, the code will always
be there in the history of the GCC codebase. Keeping around unmaintained
code makes life harder for other GCC developers who work on other parts
of the project.
-- 
Andrew :)

Senior Free Java Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)

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