Java for OS/2 and eComStation

Java is a very popular sophisticated programming environment. Applications written in the Java language are run inside a virtual machine (Java Virtual Machine, JVM) which provides a nearly identical behavior on all platforms that have a JVM implementation available. This "write once, run anywhere" approach means that developers can support a multitude of platforms while only having to maintain one code base. For users, availability of a current Java for OS/2 and eComStation means access to a huge number of existing applications.

For more information about Java, read this ​article about Java in Wikipedia.

Previously, Java had been made available for OS/2 and eComStation by IBM, Golden Code and Innotek. However, new versions with many changes and improvements have been released since then and current applications require a current JVM implementation. This project will port such a current JVM to OS/2 and eComStation. Dmitriy Kuminov, who is well-known for his work on the Qt 3 and 4 ports, has been hired as chief developer.

This project aims at porting the open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition, known as OpenJDK, to the OS/2 operating system. You can get more information about OpenJDK and related projects at the ​official OpenJDK home page.

Sponsoring

Partial funding is already provided by several companies and individuals, with Mensys BV being the main sponsor, but we still need to cover an amount of 8,000 EUR. If you are interested in sponsoring Java please contact Silvan Scherrer (silvan dot scherrer at aroa dot ch) directly or buy sponsoring units (like explained below).

In case you wonder what happened: Initially, funding was fully assured but one sponsor decided to redirect funds to another OS/2-related project. We did not loose the sponsor completely, but this project did.

If you would like to contribute to this port, you are welcome to buy a sponsoring unit for that at Mensys. 100% of that money will be transferred to netlabs.org.

The Mensys sponsor link is: ​http://www.mensys.com/shop/NetlabsJava6

Sponsoring Barometer

last update at 24th March 2011

	Euro	%
required sum	8000	100
sponsored sum	4740	59.3
remaining sum	3260	40.7

Current Status

As of the 21th of Friday, 2011, the project has entered the RC (release candidate) stage.

Latest Version

The latest version of OpenJDK 6 is 1.6.0-b22 RC2 released on 28.03.2011. This is a second release candidate version that fixes a number of bugs in the previous release candidate as well as updates OpenJDK to beta 22 (released February, 2011, the detailed change log is available ​here).

The more detailed list of changes can be found here​.

Version 1.6.0-b22 RC2 is available for downloading in the following packages and formats.

Prerequisites

GCC 4 Core Libraries	​ZIP	GCC 4 runtime libraries needed for all Odin32 based installations.
Odin32 Library	​WPI	Odin32 runtime libraries version 0.6.21606 needed for all OpenJDK packages.
xsystray widget	​WPI	Extended system tray widget for XCenter/eCenter version 0.1.1 needed to support system tray functionality in Java applications.

OpenJDK Packages

OpenJDK 6 JRE	​ZIP	JRE package needed to run Java programs. Not recommended for SMP systems (see below).
OpenJDK 6 SDK	​ZIP	SDK package needed to compile Java programs. Includes a copy of the JRE package. Not recommended for SMP systems (see below).
OpenJDK 6 JRE (SMP Friendly)	​ZIP	JRE package, same as above but with all executables marked as MPUNSAFE which makes them more or less stable on SMP machines by sticking to a single core (rare hangs are still possible).
OpenJDK 6 SDK (SMP Friendly)	​ZIP	SDK package, same as above but with all executables marked as MPUNSAFE which makes them more or less stable on SMP machines by sticking to a single core (rare hangs are still possible).

If you want to play with the latest development version, you can check it out directly from the SVN repository. In order to do so you need to download and install the subversion client for eCS (OS/2). Use the following command to check out the full source tree to a <local_directory>:

svn checkout http://svn.netlabs.org/repos/java/trunk <local_directory>

The required tools and build instructions are described in the README​ file.

Reporting Bugs

Reporting bugs and requesting new features is done through the ticket system. You can view existing tickets, add comments to them and create new tickets using the corresponding buttons at the top of every page. If you want to submit a new bug or request a feature, please use the Search function first to make sure there is no ticket for this task already created.
We review the tickets regulary and leave comments if we need more info. So please revisit the ​Feedback analysis as often as possible. If we leave comment and don't get feedback from the ticket creator, we will close the ticket after some weeks.

Anonymous access to the ticket system has been restricted due to multiple attacks of stupid spammers we've been suffering from lately. In order to create a new ticket or comment the existing one, you need to login with your Netlabs login id. If you do not have a login id, you can request one at ​http://www.netlabs.org/en/site/member/member.xml. We are sorry for inconvenience, but at the present time this is the only way to avoid extremely annoying spam.

Mailing Lists

Project discussion is done through mailing list conversations. Currently, the following mailing lists are available:

• java-dev()netlabs.org ​[http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.java.devel read online

This mailing list is for developers of Java for eCS (OS/2). All ticket changes are automatically posted to this list. Please don't post user questions there!

Credits

• Silvan Scherrer (management)
• Dmitriy Kuminov (development)
• Christian Hennecke (PR)

• netlabs.org (hosting & support)

• Sun, Oracle

We also want to thank all individuals and organizations who made donations to this project and helped to make it happen.

Screenshots

None so far.