With improved cross-browser API support thanks to the Mozilla/Sun/Chromium teams, last week I decided to take a break from functionality development and focus on browser compatibility for the new NP plugin. And here is the end result .. the plugin working with Chromium!

In addition to Chromium, the plugin also works with Firefox 3.6 A1 now.

It is the only Java plugin that works with Chromium at the moment. Proxy and cookie support won’t be there with Chromium as the APIs haven’t been implemented on the browser side yet. When they are, the plugin should be able to make use of them seamlessly.

All code is in mercurial: http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6/rev/8353f4e67ec1

Just a side note: To use it with Chromium/FF3.6, it needs to be built against xulrunner 1.9.2 Alpha* as that contains headers with the new API. Also, chormium build from 20090824 (rev. 24148) or higher is needed to make use of Liveconnect.

I remember when I first took over the old plugin. A little while before that, Tom had posted on his blog about getting the Facebook image uploader applet working with the IcedTea Plugin. This was a huge achievement because of the complex support that is required to make it work. So for the rewrite, I decided to chase that goal too, and I am happy to say that NPPlugin can now load the Facebook image uploader applet!

Infact not just Facebook, but Yahoo! games, JigZone, and a variety of other sites now work. In addition to new functionality support, other improvements include:

- Significant speed improvements. Unlike the IcedTeaPlugin which suffered from an initial lag during the first liveconnect call for an instance due to OJI and other limitations, the new one is instantaneous.

- Unicode support is done, and everything uses UTF-8 now.

Oh and for anyone following the dates, the plugin *needed* to be done by around March 2010 until a while ago: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/msg/0198421f054e29f8

However, Namoroka (Firefox 3.6) which uses Gecko 1.9.2 is now due around November ‘09:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Namoroka

So that is now the new date by which the new plugin *needs* to be done. As my friend and colleague Andrew would say (or so I picture in my head), “good times”. Good times indeed.

And here are some screen shots of a few new cool applets working with the new plugin:

1: Facebook image uploader applet, after uploading an image:

Facebook Image Uploader and IcedTeaNP Plugin

2: JigZone applet. The Left bar is html, and contains JavaScript that monitors the applet via LiveConnect to determine when to start/stop the timer:

JigZone applet and IcedTeaNP Plugin

3: Yahoo! Games. The black blocks that remove user names were added by me:

Yahoo! Poker game applet and IcedTeaNP Plugin

As usual, all code is upstream: http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6

Recientemente encontré una entrevista muy interesante realizada a Rich Sharples Director de Administración de Productos en Red Hat. Durante la entrevista se tocan temas como: la relación que existe entre los proyectos OpenJDK de Sun y IcedTea de Red Hat, la importancia y el impacto de OpenJDK en la comunidad de software libre, el proyecto para hacer más portable el código de OpenJDK, nuevas características que se verán en OpenJDK 7, lenguajes dinámicos, modularidad y virtualización. Definitivamente una lectura muy recomendable: link

Wow.. been a while since my last update. I’ve been toiling away writing gobs of new code for the new NP plugin. With the initial framework now in place, I am finally seeing results.

Java can now set members on JavaScript side! It may sound like a simple thing, but there is a lot of work needed to make it happen. String exchanges, object creation via jni-like reference handles and reflection, multi-threaded  handling, etc. And that is also why I consider this an important milestone. A lot of the aforementioned items comprise the base framework. The fact that JS members can now be controlled, proves the stability of that framework.

I have uploaded a small clip here that shows this in action (this is applet used). When the mouse moves over the applet, a listener uses liveconnect to modify the value of the “Desired Altitude” element on the right. Similarly, moving the slider updates the “Maximum Cost” element.

Click here to see the clip

Updates to the field seem a tad slow in the clip, but that is just due to recording limitations. Updates are synchronous on the end machine. All of the code needed to do the above is now in the upstream mercurial repository.

Next on my list is to do something similar for JS->Java calls, implement a few basic functions and such.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the future is here! (kinda… partly… well, okay just the beginning of it is here, but still!) IcedTeaNPPlugin is not the final name, but that it what I am calling it for the time being. As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been working on a rewrite that uses NPRuntime. The new plugin is based on GCJWebPlugin. Only the side that talks to Mozilla is based on GCJ though. Since many strides were made on the Java side (NetX bridge, proxy support, cookie support, better tag parsing, etc.), I wanted to use the Java side from the new plugin. In order to do this, the C/C++ side had to be modified to send information like cookies, proxies, etc.  Furthermore, the new Java processing model is designed to handle multiple applets in a single VM. The C/C++ side therefore had to be adapted to be compatible with the new wire protocol.

I terms of testing, I tried out applets from the original GCJWebPlugin test list, and things seem to be fine.

I am now faced with decisions on how to implement the LiveConnect bridge. I have given this some thought, and I think the best approach is to rock the boat as little as possible.

OJI is a layer that talks to the LiveConnect code, which in turn “connects” JavaScript in Mozilla to Java. The LiveConnect/OJI code is pretty sound in terms of how it goes about doing this, and I think it is a good approach. Furthermore, the Java side is already tailored to work with this approach, and is stable. This is where the less boat rocking comes in. Since we have a chunk of C/C++ code that already talks to OJI, and Java code that can appropriately respond back, I think it makes a lot of sense to mimic OJI. This will allow a lot of code reuse, which is good from a time-line and bug perspective.

Of course, that does not mean it will be easy by any means. Gecko is removing LiveConnect/OJI for a reason — it is huge, and complicated to maintain given it’s sparse usage. Furthermore, that code talks to the JS engine, not to the NPRuntime api. This middle glue will all have to be rewritten.

And there you have it, my proposed solution to implementing LiveConnect in the new plugin. Over the coming few weeks, I am going to start with the small things like setting/getting variables, and move up to the more complex ones. As always, I will keep updating this blog with my progress!

The plugin is now upstream starting with this commit. For the time being, the plugin Java backend has been checked into a separate directory. While the C/C++ side is more or less compatible with the Java side, I had to still make minor changes on Java side. These changes (except 1 relating to FIFO pipe names) should work fine with the original IcedTeaPlugin, but I am uncomfortable changing things in a stable plugin during early development of another plugin. For now, I will do manual periodic synchs between the IcedTea Java backend and the new NP plugin Java backend. I believe it is easier than having to test every java side change against the current stable IcedTea plugin.

If you wish to give the new plugin a try, you can do so by building icedtea6 (bleeding edge version, configure it with –enable-npplugin) and linking to the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/<arch>/IcedTeaNPPlugin.so  from either ~/.mozilla/plugins or /usr/lib[,64]/mozilla/plugins/ . Be sure to check about:plugins to make sure only 1 Java plugin is seen, and that it is the IcedTeaNPPlugin.so one.

A few notes if you try it:

• The new plugin should be able to handle signed applets correctly, and is secure afaik. But if you try it, please do keep in mind that it is experimental.
• Currently, debug is “always on” (including the Java side debug server)
• Since LiveConnect is not yet supported, the plugin will freeze when trying to load applets that use it. This will be fixed in the next commit.

So after being poked and prodded by people (you know who you are.. you’re on my list now) to start a blog, here is my first post!

According to this post, it seems Gecko is going to definitely remove LiveConnect and OJI soon. I had heard whispers of this before, but people stopped talking when I got close. Probably because I stumble into discussions drunk and start rambling about how Picard was the best captain[1]… but we will never know. Anyway, now it is official.

This is a problem for the IcedTea plugin, which uses LiveConnect/OJI. Here is a brief history of things:

• Back in the day (before sliced bread and all) Mozilla plugins had an API called  NPAPI. This API was fine for most cases, but lacked scriptability (i.e. allowing  the page to interact with the plugin via Javascript in any significant manner, and vice-versa).

• To fulfill this need of scriptability for Java, a Javascript<->Java bridge called LiveConnect was developed. The older Sun Java plugin used this via an API called OJI.

• Around the end of 2004 (this date is from Wikipedia without citation, so it may not be accurate) browsers supporting NPAPI agreed on a new scriptable extension to NPAPI, known as NPRutime. Around 2007, Sun started working on a new plugin (libnpjp2.so) that uses NPRuntime. The new plugin is now the default.

With the Sun plugin having switched over to the new API, there are very few users of LiveConnect/OJI now and Gecko has decided to therefore remove it and reduce the maintenance burden.

As there is no date available for when the new Sun plugin will be released as Free Software[2], we’ve decided to start work on a new plugin that works via NPRuntime. The new plugin will be implemented in 2 phases:

1. Get normal Java applets working (including signed ones)
2. Get the Javascript<->Java bridge working

#1 is relatively easy, and will cover a large number of use cases. It is #2 that will be time consuming. Since NPRuntime is just an extension of NPAPI, that means that the older GCJ Web plugin (which uses NPAPI) can be used as a skeleton. That is the route I am currently taking. The idea is to modify GCJWebplugin so that it can use the new NetX-ified Java backend that IcedTea plugin uses, and consequently support signed applets, cookies, proxies, etc.

As stated in the message by Josh in the link above, Gecko will be making the change in 1.9.2 which will be the base for Firefox 3.6 due in Q2 2010. Bleeding edge distros like Fedora Rawhide will switch to Gecko 1.9.2 sooner than that of course, but it will still be a good few months before that. Hopefully it will be enough time for a rewrite! I am close to being done with the first phase. Next on my list is planning how we will be implementing the bridge, figuring out the necessary resource allocation, etc. I will keep updating this blog as things progress. Rest assured, we will try our best so that when OJI is removed there is a smooth transition to keep productivity at a minimum by allowing everyone to use Yahoo Games, Absolute Poker, etc.

1: Not that it needed saying, but still: I was kidding – I don’t stumble into discussions drunk and ramble about Star Trek. And as if Picard needs to be justified!

2: Edit: I should’ve reworded that. What I meant to say was that there is no confirmed release date. As per

http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/#f647

http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/milestones/

It is targetted for M4. However it cannot be confirmed and should that date be missed, it will be rather late to start a plugin rewrite and distros like Rawhide won’t have Java plugin support in that mean time. Hence the push for rewrite now…

Sorry for the delay…

For a while now we have been running tests nightly (via Hudson) to assure builds always complete successfully. A short while later we incorporated running the Mauve test suite, and eventually JTreg (when Mark Wielaard made it SO easy). The problem was that we were only posting our Mauve and JTreg results internally, and realized we may not have been checking for regressions as rigorously as we should have. ALSO, we all know the importance of being open.

Recently, one of our brilliant interns at the Toronto office, Omair Majid, got it up and running. All regressions are mailed out to a dedicated mailing list, and nightly results for Mauve and JTreg are posted on a public page.

Check out his announcement here, and please send us your suggestions.

There are two ways you can have java up and running in your Ubuntu distribution; either using the Sun Java6 Runtime or using the IcedTea OpenJDK Java6 Runtime. The difference is that the former one is not canonical supported and is the official Java JRE whereas the latter uses the OpenJDK under the IcedTea project.

It’s better to go with the latter OpenJDK and both can be found in the add/remove applications program. Simple search for Java and you will get OpenJDK Java6 WebStart and OpenJDK Java6 Runtime. Mark them to install.

Also to run Java inside your web browser you need to install the IcedTea Java Plugin.
Once you have done downloading and installing the above three packages your Ubuntu is ready to utilise Java wherever necessary.

In case you want to install Sun Java6 Runtime then you should also install Sun Java 6.0 plugin for web browsers.

Although once i had installed OpenJDK i went to the java verification website:

http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

There it shows my version to be 1.6.0_0 which is version 6 but i think its not the latest build which is Java 6 Update 12 at the time of writing. Also in the case of Sun Java6 Runtime i was getting a Update 10 build.

It shouldn’t matter a lot except for when developing. So to develop i installed Eclipse from the application manager. It downloads and installs it’s own JDK which was a really old version 1.5. But you can point it to your latest version:

Goto Windows>Preferences>Java>Installed JRE’s

In it search for new JRE’s by clicking on the button and navigating to the following folder:

/usr/lib/jvm/

It will contain both your Java-1.5 (GCJ) and Java-6-OpenJDK. So on searching it will give you the option to select. In mine there were four options:

1. The java-1.5 gcj
2. Default-java
3. Java-6-OpenJDK
4. Java-gcj

For now i am sticking with OpenJDK.

I am going to brag for just a second…

After I updated my system to F-10, I rebooted and sound worked without any further tinkering. WAIT… that’s not all. I plugged-in my cellphone, and Fedora immediately recognized that it had a camera on it, and I was able to transfer to/from my phone without any further tinkering. AND I plugged-in my iPod, and I was immediately able to transfer to/from it without any further tinkering.

I am sure there are several more improvements from Fedora 9, but at the moment, these are most important to me. Oh yeah, and Facebook’s Photo Uploader now works thanks to Tom and Deepak’s LiveConnect work in OpenJDK.

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea6 1.3.1.

The IcedTea6 project provides a harness to build the source code from
OpenJDK6 (http://openjdk.java.net) using Free Software build tools.

1.3.1 marks the first stable release of the new IcedTea Web Browser Plugin. The most prominent feature of the new plugin is Liveconnect support, which enables JavaScript from the browser to access the Java Virtual Machine.

What’s New?
—————–
- Updated to b12 build.
- Plugin including LiveConnect support built as default.
- Various bugs fixed: renderer patch, version string updated,
chinese fonts filename fix for Fedora etc.
- More progress on Shark and Cacao.
- Several plugin bug and build fixes: (http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla/ and
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/).

—————–

The tarball and nosrc RPM can be downloaded here:
http://icedtea.classpath.org/download/fedora/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-2b12.fc10.nosrc.rpm
http://icedtea.classpath.org/download/source/icedtea6-1.3.1.tar.gz

The following people helped with this release:
Gary Benson, Deepak Bhole, Alon Bar-Lev, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Andrew Haley, Andrew John Hughes, Ioana Ivan, Matthias Klose, Omair Majid, Xerxes Ranby, Christian Thalinger, Mark Wielaard, Lillian Angel

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

To get started:
$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6
$ cd icedtea6

Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure
$ make

The new package has been built into Fedora 10 (rawhide) and should appear in the yum repositories in a couple of days.

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea6 1.3.

The IcedTea6 project provides a harness to build the source code from
OpenJDK6 (http://openjdk.java.net) using Free Software build tools and
provides replacements libraries for the binary plugs with code from the
GNU Classpath project. More information on IcedTea can be found here:
http://icedtea.classpath.org

What’s New?
—————–
- Updated to b12 bundle.
- Fixed to use new sound service, Gervill.
- Many Netx fixes and now built by default.
- LiveConnect support (–enable-liveconnect).
– Implemented JavaScript->Java security.
- PulseAudio integrated (–enable-pulse-java)
- VisualVM tool integrated (–enable-visualvm).
- Added out-of-the-box CACAO support (–with-cacao).
- Added the experimental Shark JIT for Zero.
- Cleaned up crypto support, all algorithms and key sizes are fully
supported now without any (regional) restrictions. No more need for
separate crypto policy jars.
- Integration of Mozilla Rhino javascript support for javax.script.
(See http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=179 when
you want to enable non-system-installed versions of Rhino).
- Add support for Zero builds on alpha, arm, mips, mipsel, m68k, s390.
- Various build fixes.
- Several bug and security fixes: (http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla/ and
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/).

—————–

The tarball and nosrc RPM can be downloaded here:
- java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-0.23.b12.fc10.nosrc.rpm
- icedtea6-1.3.tar.gz

The following people helped with this release:
Gary Benson, Deepak Bhole, Tom Callaway, Pablo del Campo, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Dennis Gilmore, Andrew Haley, Andrew John Hughes, Ioana Ivan, Matthias Klose, DJ Lucas, Omair Majid, Xerxes Ranby, Marc Schoenefeld, Keith Seitz, Joshua Sumali, Christian Thalinger, Mark Wielaard, Lillian Angel

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

To get started:
$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6
$ cd icedtea6

Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure (–enable-liveconnect –enable-visualvm –enable-pulse-java)
$ make

Yey! Josh did it again!

The latest OpenJDK binary included in Fedora 9 (x86 and x86_64) passes the rigorous Java Test Compatibility Kit!

See Rich Sharples’ announcement here.

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea6 1.2.

The IcedTea6 project provides a harness to build the source code from OpenJDK6 using Free Software build tools and provides replacements libraries for the binary plugs with code from the GNU Classpath project. More information on IcedTea can be found here.

What’s New?
—————–
- Updated to b09.
- Added the the lcms library with PYCC and LINEAR_RGB ICC
profiles.
- Integrated Gervill to provide midi support.
- JTreg integrated.
- javaws/NetX fixes:
— improved security, namely catching Socket permissions during
runtime
— implemented the remaining JNLP services api (PrintService, JNLPRandomAccessFile)
— applet focusing bug fixed
- sparc/sparc64 port
- Desktop file integration.
- Various zero fixes.
- Sound fixes.
- Font fixes.
- Many bug fixes here and here.

Read about the future plans for OpenJDK in Fedora 10 here.

—————–

The tarball and nosrc RPM can be downloaded from here.

The following people helped with this release:
Lillian Angel, Gary Benson, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Andrew Haley, Andrew John Hughes, Matthias Klose, Dan Munckton, Parag Nemade, Keith Seitz, Joshua Sumali, Christian Thalinger, Mark Wielaard, Yi Zhan

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

To get started:
$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6
$ cd icedtea6

Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure
$ make

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea6 1.1.

The IcedTea6 project provides a harness to build the source code from
OpenJDK6 using Free Software build tools and
provides replacements libraries for the binary plugs with code from the
GNU Classpath project. More information on IcedTea can be found here.

What’s New?
—————–
- Zero builds on any architecture.
- New features added to NetX:
– Certificate fingerprints now show as part
of certificate details.
– gcjwebplugin can now run applets through NetX,
taking advantage of NetX’s sandboxing and application security.
– User trusted certificates can be managed by passing the -viewer
option to NetX.
- Updated to b08.
- Many bug fixes: IcedTea bugzilla and RH bugzilla.
—————–

The bundles can be downloaded here: nosrc RPM and tarball.

The following people helped with this release:
Matthias Klose, Christian Thalinger, Mark Wielaard, Joshua Sumali, Gary Benson,
Andrew Haley, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Keith Seitz, Lillian Angel

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

To get started:
$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea6
$ cd icedtea6

Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure
$ make

java-1.6.0-openjdk has made the F9 Beta deadline. This package will replace java-1.7.0-icedtea.

“OpenJDK contributes ~99% of the code in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package and IcedTea continues to provide autotools support, a portable interpreter for ppc and ppc64 support, plugin support, Web Start support and patches to integrate OpenJDK into Fedora. The IcedTea sources are included in the java-1.6.0-openjdk SRPM.” – Fedora Release Notes.

Mucho Debian veo ahí en el título.

Tras una semana de prueba y error y de limpiar bugs a mansalva, he conseguido una versión mucho más estable de pprocACL2 y XMLEye, y lo que es más importante, he creado un repositorio Debian con todos los paquetes necesarios. Además, tengo la grata sorpresa de que mi programa compila y funciona sin más problemas en IcedTea: el único “pero” es que la salida HTML no se muestra del todo bien, pero son detalles sin importancia realmente. Por fin he podido quitar sun-java6-jdk de Build-Depends. He tenido que poner en Depends del paquete IcedTea (con preferencia) y el JRE de Sun (por si el usuario ya lo tiene, ya que java2-runtime por defecto en Gutsy es GCJ, en el que no funciona bien Swing, y sólo SWT.

De paso, he aprovechado lo que he ido aprendiendo todo este tiempo para hacer una pequeña guía (bueno, el PDF tiene ~60 páginas) de cómo crear un paquete Debian, siguiendo una serie de buenas prácticas. No intento competir con otras guías fantásticas que hay por ahí (hay algunas referencias en mi propia guía a ellas), pero vi que no había gran cosa en español, y que no se hablaba bien de ciertas opciones como crear nuestro propio repositorio con reprepro, sincronizarlo con lftp, o usar cowdancer para agilizar el proceso de construcción pbuilder, entre otras cosas. El manual está bajo la GNU FDL y su código fuente está en el repositorio.

Tuve que hacerme mis propias hojas XSLT para convertir DocBook a LaTeX, ya que las que había dejaban mucho que desear (creo que el autor no comprendía bien que LaTeX  es quien debe ocuparse de la presentación, y no él). Están en el subdirectorio manualDebian/hojasXSL, y hay dos: una para generar ficheros LaTeX, y otra para los BibTeX (la salida se ha de volcar a un fichero llamado bibliografia.bib).

Ahora empezaré a trabajar en la documentación del programa. También podría trabajar un poco en las traducciones y en hacer que se integre bien en Windows.

Para instalar los paquetes, hay que añadir estas líneas a /etc/apt/sources.list (también se puede usar Orígenes de software bajo el menú Sistema, y entrar en la pestaña Software de terceros):

deb http://www.shoyusauce.org/packages/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://www.shoyusauce.org/packages/ubuntu gutsy main

Hay que descargarse la clave GPG con la que he firmado mis paquetes, y añadirla al anillo de claves de confianza de apt:

wget http://www.shoyusauce.org/packages/claveDebian.asc
sudo apt-key add claveDebian.asc

Ahora ya podemos actualizar e instalar XMLEye y pprocACL2:

sudo aptitude install xmleye pprocACL2

De por sí no tienen tantas dependencias, pero a la hora de desarrollar he tenido que empaquetar algunos módulos con muchas subdependencias como PAR::Packer. Por supuesto, no hay que instalar ambos: son completamente independientes. XMLEye puede usarse simplemente como un visor XML.

He subido también un tar.bz2 con el código fuente de pprocACL2 y XMLEye. En el código fuente de pprocACL2 hay una serie de ficheros .lisp de ejemplo bajo t/testInputs, que están muy probados. Provienen de los tutoriales disponibles de ACL2. El ejemplo hanoi-use.lisp es el más interesante, ya que incluye enlaces entre una demostración y el libro cuyos teoremas y funciones usa.

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea 1.6.

The IcedTea project provides a harness to build the source code from OpenJDK using Free Software build tools and provides replacements libraries for the binary plugs with code from the GNU Classpath project. More information on IcedTea can be found here.

What’s New?
—————–
- Zero-assembler implemented.
- JNLP support added with NetX. Still a work-in-progress.

This release of IcedTea also includes new features added to NetX.
– Signed applications display a dialog asking permission to run, with additional signing information and certificate details.
– Implemented JNLP services: File read and write, Clipboard read and write.
– Unsigned applications must now get permission from the user before the above JNLP services function.
Check out the screenshots.

- Updated to build with gcc 4.3.
- Many, many, many other bug fixes: here and here.
—————–

The tarball and nosrc RPM can be downloaded here.

The following people helped with this release:
Gary Benson, Lillian Angel, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Andrew Haley, Joshua Sumali, Francis Kung, Matthias Klose, Dalibor Topic.

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

To get started:
$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea
$ cd icedtea
Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure
$ make

Joshua Sumali, currently Red Hat’s IcedTea intern, added support for NetX into IcedTea. It works great! He is still working on implementing those features Netx is missing.

Netx is a high-quality implementation of the Java Network Launching Protocol (JNLP). It downloads code over the network for applications and applets, caches it, and runs it in a secure environment.

We are proud to announce the release of IcedTea 1.5.

The IcedTea project provides a harness to build the source code from
OpenJDK (http://openjdk.java.net) using Free Software build tools and
provides replacements libraries for the binary plugs with code from the
GNU Classpath project. More information on IcedTea can be found here.

What’s New?
—————–
* ppc/ppc64 support.
* ecj bootstrapping re-implemented.
* Updated to OpenJDK b24 build (now uses mercurial).
* System libraries (libpng, libjpeg, zlib, giflib) are used
instead of OpenJDK’s implementations.
* Many, many, many other bug fixes (reported here and here).

The tarball and nosrc RPM can be downloaded here.

The following people helped with this release:
Gary Benson, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Andrew Haley, Lillian Angel, Joshua Sumali, Matthias Klose, Matthew Flaschen, Francis Kung.

We would also like to thank the bug reporters and testers!

———–

$ hg clone http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea
$ cd icedtea

Full build requirements and instructions are in INSTALL:
$ ./configure
$ make

When this completes you’ll have a usable IcedTea in:
openjdk/build/linux-i586 or openjdk/build/linux-amd64 or openjdk/build/linux-ppc or openjdk/build/linux-ppc64

JBoss Seam developer and Red Hatter/JBossian Pete Muir has posted about running Seam under IcedTea, the implementation of OpenJDK available in Fedora 8.

Pete ran a “highly unscientific test” and found out that IcedTea outperformed other JDKs:

This piqued my interest, so I did a highly unscientific test and installed the Sun JDK 1.5.0_14 and the Sun JDK 1.6.0_03, and (using Seam and the example compiled by JDK 1.5) took a look at how long the server takes to start.

I found that using JDK 5 to boot the server it took 32s, using JDK 6 it took 25s and using Iced Tea (JDK 7) 21s — definitely going in the right directions! I then compiled Seam and the example using Iced Tea, and (running JBoss AS using Iced Tea) got a startup time around 19-20s.

Of course, this no match for a real performance test, but I found it interesting.

It is very interesting. There are a number of paths that come from IcedTea being in Fedora:

• JBoss apps can now be compiled natively on Fedora, meaning we are going to start seeing all these packages available in Fedora
• There is another, viable JRE available to developers, one that is free in all the senses of the word
• If Pete’s unscientific tests are any indication, things are “definitely going in the right directions” for performance of the fully open stack

In the cycle of which Fedora becomes which version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it is a future version of Fedora (either 9 or 10) that is going to be the codebase that is branched for RHEL. This means IcedTea technologies are going to receive at least one more full distribution development cycle. The proper jargon for this is, “Well baked technology”

As the GNU Classpath and gcj initiatives have shown, providing a fully free JRE helped convince Sun the time was right to open source Java. By the time RHEL 6 is out, there are likely to be >1 fully free, fully open source JREs for you to choose from.

Combine this with a little virtualization and appliance OS builds, and you’ve got segregated app servers running individual JVMs that you can turn on and off like water.