Where are the Java 7 updates for OpenJDK?

Question

Oracle has released update 2 for Java 7, while it appears OpenJDK is still on the original build 147 which was released last summer.

Will/are updates available for OpenJ

Answer 1

I'm going to respond to my own question here to synthesize all my findings and the answers by @Agemen and @Kowser above.

• OpenJDK is a reference implementation and does not change unless the spec changes
• There is an OpenJDK update project which implements all updates in source (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7u/, source http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7u/jdk7u-dev)
• OpenJDK will not provide any compiled or packaged updates. In fact, OpenJDK provided binaries for the initial release just as a convenience.
• It is the responsibility of third party OS/distributors to compile and package Java. E.g. RedHat and Ubuntu
• No third party has yet released updates for Java 7
• These third parties typically use IcedTea to do the compilation and packaging, but IcedTea itself does not do so. http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page

We now have a combination of things that are making usage of Java really painful in open source server deployment

• Oracle JDK has updates (including security fixes) that no OpenJDK package has. This makes using anything other than Oracle JDK result in poorer security
• Oracle JDK can no longer be packaged distributed by third parties (e.g. Ubuntu). Now we have to install it by hand or script it, and maintain it, on all our servers.

I just don't get it...

Marc

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EDIT

As @Krige pointed out, things seems to have finally kicked into gear with OpenJDK builds available with the latest updates!

Answer 2

I may be wrong, but I think sources can be retrieved with mercurial on a different repository. It seems to be dedicated from the one linked by Peter Lawrey in a comment on the question. The addrees is http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7u/jdk7u-dev

I don't know exactly how branches and tags are managed by Oracle and the OpenJDK contributors, but maybe are the first stable released definitely frozen, and a cloned repo is used instead to ensure inclusion of fixes...

To answer the question, I'm not sure that the OpenJDK sites are supposed to propose any packaged version of the JDK. Oracle's infrastructure is made for that, I guess... I may have missed something, but I think the packaged JDK's that are given on the Oracle website is jsut a bundled, compiled version of the OpenJDK. As it has become the reference implementation, and is actively maintained Oracle, I can't see why it should be different.

EDIT : BTW, I can't find a direct link that I can use to download a packaged OpenJDK on the OpenJDK website, even for the first stable release. But once again, I may miss something obvious :-p

EDIT 2 : I've fixed the link - you know have the link to the repo of all the sources, not only the jdk ;-)

Moreover, as pointed in a link given in the comments, there are many projects under OpenJDK... So the repo structure is a bit complex, with hg "forests" (that I didn't know before trying to compile OpenJDK 7 by myself...).

Answer 3

From this blog post, it tries to clarify, it will not be expected to get update for OpenJDK unless specification for Java is revised.

From the author's comment, which was given as explanation, is quoted below

We plan to produce Linux and Windows RI binaries from the OpenJDK code base. Technically, only one is needed but traditionally Sun provided more than one to facilitiate for implementors. Note that the RI has a very specific purpose (eg, to serve as the RI) and is generally not updated except when/if the specification is revised.

To clarify OpenJDK is the RI (Reference Implementation) from Oracle.

I did not tried for exact information from oracle. But I am convinced with the blog post.

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So the thing I can understand: Neither expect any update nor any bug fixes for OpenJDK.