[HN Gopher] Preview of Microsoft Build of OpenJDK
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       Preview of Microsoft Build of OpenJDK
        
       Author : velmu
       Score  : 93 points
       Date   : 2021-04-06 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (devblogs.microsoft.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (devblogs.microsoft.com)
        
       | Null-Set wrote:
       | The distinction from other builds:
       | 
       | > Microsoft Build of OpenJDK 11 binaries may contain backported
       | fixes and enhancements we deem important to our customers and our
       | internal users. Some of these may have not yet been formally
       | backported upstream and are clearly signposted in our release
       | notes. This allows us to expedite improvements and fixes much
       | faster while we proceed to upstream those changes in parallel.
       | Updates will be free and available to every Java developer to
       | deploy anywhere.
        
       | suyash wrote:
       | For those looking for pure open JDK builds :
       | https://openjdk.java.net/install/
        
       | Koshkin wrote:
       | The salient piece:
       | 
       | Microsoft deploys over 500,000 Java Virtual Machines (JVMs)
       | internally - excluding all Azure services and customer workloads
       | - with needs that go from back-end microservices to Big Data
       | systems, message brokers, event streaming services, and gaming
       | servers. More than 140,000 of these JVMs are already based on the
       | Microsoft Build of OpenJDK.
        
         | pritambarhate wrote:
         | Linked In (owned by MS) is a big user of JVM. Kafka originated
         | at Linked In. [1] Similarly many other acquired companies by MS
         | may be using JVM. Also many BigData related OSS systems require
         | JVM. Most likely MS must be running a few of those too.
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Kafka
        
           | dukoid wrote:
           | Now I am wondering how much of this number is minecraft
           | servers... :)
        
       | The_rationalist wrote:
       | I have heard that switching from a JDK vendor to another can
       | alter runtime performance. It is to be expected as the JVM is a
       | C++ codebase, its performance depends on the compiler flags.
       | 
       | Hence I wonder if there is a vendor that has found the optimal
       | configuration e.g -03 + x86-v3 (AVX) + LTO + PGO (e.g autofdo) +
       | BOLT
        
         | karianna wrote:
         | TLDR: This can happen, but is not done much in practice.
         | 
         | Most vendors use pretty similar build toolchains in order to
         | maintain platform support baselines. Typically any improvements
         | get made at OpenJDK and then filter back down to downstream
         | distributions.
         | 
         | One of the things we're looking to do is to add Metadata to the
         | release to make the exact toolchain transparent going forward.
        
       | firstSpeaker wrote:
       | there are plenty of vendors providing builds of OpenJDK. I am not
       | sure how are they different from one another and what
       | distinguishing features they could provide. Wishing for a
       | comparison matrix!
        
         | brsiegel wrote:
         | Azul publishes a decent comparison matrix:
         | https://www.azul.com/products/zulu-enterprise/jdk-comparison...
        
         | soapdog wrote:
         | I don't know about other vendors but as far as I can tell,
         | Microsoft is the only vendor providing an aarch64 build of
         | OpenJDK for Windows thus making it available to all those cute
         | Windows on ARM machines.
        
           | webreac wrote:
           | AFAIK redhat took over the maintenance of java for the
           | releases that are not anymore provided by oracle:
           | https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/download
           | 
           | I do not know why microsoft dupplicates this effort.
        
             | pritambarhate wrote:
             | Most likely because it's of strategic importance to them
             | and they don't want to depend on a third party for a
             | critical piece of their infrastructure.
        
             | xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
             | There are many other OpenJDK vendors:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenJDK#OpenJDK_builds
        
             | ayewo wrote:
             | > I do not know why microsoft dupplicates this effort.
             | 
             | Why do you say they are duplicating efforts?
             | 
             | The builds on the RedHat page are for: x86 (32-bit), x64
             | (64-bit x86) but any mention of aarch64, which is what
             | Microsoft has been working on with Azul Systems, is
             | conspicuously missing.
             | 
             | (aarch64 or ARM64 is the 64-bit extension of the ARM
             | architecture.)
        
       | jarym wrote:
       | Good and welcome progress - eventually I hope there will be
       | better interop between .NET and Java platforms.
       | 
       | Meanwhile most Microsoft shops view any non-MS technology as if
       | it were a plague.
        
         | The_rationalist wrote:
         | The dream would be to make a coreclr IR to graalvm IR similarly
         | to sulong (llvm IR to graalvm IR)
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | Isn't this on the roadmap in some form? I thought I read they
         | were consolidating the WinRT interop with the Xamarin Android
         | apis for a consistent interop style.
        
           | oaiey wrote:
           | They work on language translation concepts. C++ to winrt, C#
           | to WinRT, Rust to WinRT,... And also C# to (Android) Java or
           | C# to (iOS) Swift/Objective-C.
           | 
           | But that is just interop/language translation beyond stone
           | age C ABI like most languages do.
        
       | pulse7 wrote:
       | Is this a new try of "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" [1]?
       | 
       | Now that OpenJDK is GPL-ed, they can add anything they want! And
       | of course - they will not try to put the changes upstream,
       | because this is not "extend" anymore...
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
        
         | JoyrexJ9 wrote:
         | Hasn't this extend/embrace thing got a little tired now. Are
         | people still living 15-20 years in the past?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rubin55 wrote:
       | Will this enable me to run JetBrains IDEs on Windows on ARM?
        
         | karianna wrote:
         | We'd love to see folks try and give both Jetbrains and
         | ourselves feedback!
        
         | brunoborges wrote:
         | We saw some folks running Minecraft Java Edition on Windows on
         | ARM with our JDK 16 EA builds. So... technically, it is
         | possible. It will mostly depend on JetBrains' IDEA
        
         | lewurm wrote:
         | Issue at JetBrains:
         | https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2074
        
       | oweiler wrote:
       | SDKMAN! already supports the Microsoft Build
       | 
       | sdk install java 11.0.10.9-ms
        
       | adamc wrote:
       | This is a good thing. Even though my shop has mostly moved on
       | from Java (to Python and other things), we still run plenty of
       | software that depends on it.
       | 
       | I wonder how badly Oracle's attempt to monetize Java is going.
        
         | Sindisil wrote:
         | Not sure what exactly you mean, but they've open sourced the
         | entire JDK, including Flight Recorder and Java mission control.
         | 
         | They're selling support for the JDK to companies that value
         | that service.
         | 
         | I'm guessing they're doing OK on that front, since the sorts of
         | enterprises that typically buy support are their bread and
         | butter.
        
       | JCWasmx86 wrote:
       | Is it something special or is it just another OpenJDK-build with
       | support?
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-06 23:01 UTC)