Linux JVMs Running Under BSD?

Mock asks: "I work for a web services company, and so part of our business process involves setting up web servers for our customers that include a JVM for running our software. Although I've found FreeBSD to be rock-solid for server applications and the quickest to fix security issues, the JVM support has been lagging behind other systems, for some time now. I would like to know if it is wise, or even possible, to run the Linux JVM under BSD? Are there other alternatives I'd be better off considering (besides using a different operating system)?"

Comments

Whaaaaaat?

[Breakerofthings]

Like this?

It's called the ports tree.

[JumpSuit Boy]

http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-blackdown-jdk 12/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-blackdow n-jdk 13/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-blackdow n-jdk 14/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-ibm-jdk1 3/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-ibm-jdk14 /
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-sun-jdk12/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-sun-jdk13/
http://www.freshports.org/java/linux-sun-jdk14/

or you could just use the native ones
http://www.freshports.org/java/jdk12/
http: //www.freshports.org/java/jdk13/
http://www.fresh ports.org/java/jdk14/

That said I used it to run a small enhydra/xmlc java web app. In my last job and I performed well and with the recent (last six months) inclusion of the hotspot stuff it's much faster.

Re:You could use?

[aminorex]

Java is open source too. Kaffe is Open Source (tm),
and the JDK has source freely available, so while it
is not Open Source (tm), it is open source, but not
Free Software (tm) -- just free software.

That, and you can also use gcj. gcj doesn't do AWT
or Swing yet, so use SWT for GUI stuff.

please stop confusing people

[g4dget]

"Java" is a trademark of Sun Microsystems. It's a platform, the total of the Java language and the Java libraries, as defined by Sun. Most of the Java platform exists only in a Sun proprietary implementation, which you can obtain under roughly the same conditions as Microsoft's "shared source" implementation.

Kaffe and GNU gcj are not implementations of Java. At best, they are implementations of the Java language or virtual machine, but even in that capacity, they are not blessed by Sun. Porting most substantial Sun Java-based software system to Kaffe or gcj is essentially impossible.

So, please spare us your cynicism or misleading use of language. Sun's implementation of Java is not "open source" in any sense that the term is commonly understood (and the term was created and defined by Eric Raymond). It isn't even close to open source; you enter into legal obligations to Sun just by looking at it. If you treat it like it's open source, you may get into lots of legal trouble with Sun. Neither are gcj or kaffe an implementation of "Java"; they aren't even close, as you would find out if you tried porting anything to them.

However, we agree on this: gcj is a pretty good compiler, and SWT is a pretty good toolkit. I do recommend using them instead of Sun Java. They also have lots of practical advantages, like being smaller, starting up faster, and requiring less memory. But gcj and SWT together don't make "Java". If you are really careful, you can write libraries that will compile and run under both gcj and Sun Java, but it's a significant amount of work and requires a lot of care (as I can tell you from first hand experience).

Re:please stop confusing people

[Orthanc_duo]

The source of the Java Libraries are released. The Java Language specification is open.. ie. it can be viewed and implemented by anyone.

Sun has a proprietary java compiler / JVM but there is nothing to stop someone from implementing there own (jikes for example).
Same situation as gcc vs. Borland C compiler (for example)

Re:please stop confusing people

[g4dget]

The source of the Java Libraries are released.

The source to Windows NT has been released, too. That doesn't make Windows NT open source, and talking about it in that way would be very confusing.

The Java Language specification is open.. ie. it can be viewed and implemented by anyone.

Even if that were true, it would be irrelevant. We are not talking about the Java Language, we are talking about Java, which is a language and a set of libraries.

But your claim actually does not even appear to be true: as far as I can tell, Sun has made no legally binding commitment to allow "anyone" to implement Java. So far, all we have is a letter of intent, as part of the JCP, to allow open source implementations.

Beware

[cattlepr0d]

We ran a Tomcat based website using the linux JVM on FreeBSD. It rarely stayed up for more than a day at a time (someone told me it's a good way to expose bugs in the emulation layer ;). However, with the native FreeBSD JVM (and the Shujit JIT compiler) it's rock solid.

Re:It's called the ports tree. Tsarkon Reports

[JumpSuit Boy]

Ok no need to be pissy. Of the native ones (I only use the linux ones to bootstrap compile the native)

I have been using jdk131 for production app dev and web serving for about 2.5 years w/ no problems. The recent inclusion of the hotspot realy inproved performance in 1.3.

I have started to use jdk14 on freebsd5-current for testing and it seems fine. I would not deploy with it yet it is a beta it still fails 20 out 2700 tests. It is worth noting that both the native and linux jdk14 really like running on freebsd5 and are not as happy on 4.X