[lsb-discuss] LSB conf call notes for 2008-04-02
Darren Davis
ddavis at novell.com
Wed Apr 2 10:30:31 PDT 2008
Jeff Licquia wrote:
> Attendees: Carlos Duclos and Jesper Thomschultz from TrollTech; Mats
> Wichmann, LSB workgroup member of long standing and Intel employee; Stew
> Benedict, developer for the LF; Dan Kohn, LF Chief Operating Officer;
> Sam Hart, developer for the LF; Darren Davis, software support manager
> for Novell (did I get that right?); Alexey Khoroshilov, manager of LSB
>
Close...
Darren R. Davis
Technical Product Manager/Linux Developer Evangelist
ISV Relations
Novell Open Platform Solutions (The Linux Business Unit)
> project for ISPRAS; Joseph Kowalski, LSB Sun community contact for Java;
> Russ Herrold from SpikeSource; Ted Ts'o, LF technical manager; Jeff
> Licquia, developer for the LF.
>
> Introduce Joseph Kowalski. At Sun almost 20 years; project lead for
> SunOS 5/Solaris 2. Started working in Java a few years ago. Would like
> to see more uniform installation of Java. Sun and LSB pretty much
> aligned. JCK is being worked on. Ted: Java certification is a serious
> issue. Java as part of the installation system, also enterprise apps
> which require a particular JVM, also small to medium apps which work
> with all JVMs. How do we say that the LSB includes Java that meet those
> goals? Could require distros to ship a "JVM"; problem with community
> distros because of certification requirements. Could certify a
> LSB-compliant JVM; is that possible under the Java rules? Joseph: can
> act as liasion, get to right people. Sun's position: not high on list,
> not many resources. But, if we don't engage now, it could be painful
> later. On JCK: any JVM can be certified by sending a request to Sun.
> Two major stipulations: must be predominantly based on OpenJDK (which
> most are), and you can't say "94% compliant": compliant or not. This
> should be sufficient to certify a completely open source JDK. Ted: can
> you send us the link? Joseph: should be prominent on OpenJDK site, will
> send it by tomorrow. Jeff: commuity distros can do builds and certify
> as needed w/o hassle? Joseph: yes. Java only; JDK 7 will include newer
> stuff, like Java Web Start. Can't speak for the distros or other JVMs,
> but there should be no roadblocks for 100% certified, open source Java
> this calendar year. Still concerns; standard needs two implementations.
> Dan: Sun's strategy to closed test suite? Joseph: closed, available
> but not free, more of a tracking thing from Sun's perspective, tied to
> OpenJDK. Ted: JCK license will be "free as in beer", can only use it to
> test an implementation derived from OpenJDK? Joseph: key is what "based
> on" means. 100% black-box implementation wouldn't probably work, but
> Sun intends to be rather liberal. Could possibly do it now, but the
> rules are still unclear. Jeff: good long-term LSB strategy then would
> be to require a Sun-compliant Java in distros, using this certification
> strategy? Joseph: yes. Ted: not specify the policy, just the result.
> Russ: right now, there are two alternatives for Java: closed-source with
> indemnification (not suitable) and open-source (not complete). So, no
> current solution for CentOS. Jeff: right, this is a long-term strategy.
> Ted: timeline? Joseph: goal is to get OpenJDK into Ubuntu main. Ted:
> 8.10 means complete by mid-year. Joseph: more likely fall than summer.
> Ted: could start going down this path, make a decision end-of-year.
> Maybe Java becomes trial-use.
>
> Jeff: short term strategy? Idea is to get the JVMs certified to the
> LSB. This is currently prohibited by Sun's policy; certification tied
> to the service pack level of the distro used. Joseph: not sure if
> that's entirely correct, can find out. May not be so picky on the
> service pack/update level. Ted: may also depend on who you talk to;
> overcautious. Would be nice to allow certification to the abstract LSB
> platform. Joseph: question of trust. How much would Sun trust the LSB
> to be stable enough? SunOS/Solaris ABI compliance wasn't even 100%
> (discrepancy on page size assumptions). Joseph is not qualified to give
> an answer. Ted: could require more effort and conversation to make that
> happen. Joseph: can't hold "LSB" in your hand; can hold RHEL 5 or SLES
> 10. Ted: we are expanding our tests. Can also happen at the app level.
> Jeff: question is, can we meet the confidence level Sun would require?
> Joseph: do we need it? Distro tests their JDK; LSB accepts that.
> Maybe we don't need anything more than that. Jeff: what about apps that
> require a specific JVM? Ted: example: Lotus Notes is bundled with a
> specific IBM JVM; Ted runs it on Debian, on which the IBM JVM is not
> certified. Users are doing that unsupported; can we make that better?
> Joseph: how to handle multiple JVMs on a single box? Ted: each app
> comes with its own bundled JVM. Joseph: then the Java certification is
> irrelevant; the whole app (including the JVM) becomes a LSB issue as-is.
> Ted: yes, correct; we'd like to make that possible. Make it possible.
> Robert: is a short-term goal, we're close, will Sun certify? Ted: two
> problems--will the rules allow it, and will the JVM vendors do it?
> Robert: question is, will Sun be willing? What effort will Sun put into
> it? Joseph: common case is that the distro ships a trustworthy JRE. If
> the JRE is bundled, the app can do its own LSB certification. Java cert
> is irrelevant. Believes that it is a desireable attribute for a JVM to
> be LSB-compliant, because it will make the ISV's life easier. Jeff: can
> such an app be called a "Java app"? Joseph: isn't it just "Lotus Notes"
> or whatever? Ted: what about the Java trademark issue? Joseph: issue
> between the JVM vendor and Sun, and the app vendor and the LSB.
>
> Jeff: out of time. Should continue the conversation. Please review
> posted call notes and correct the record. Also, should continue the
> conversation on the mailing list.
>
> Jeff: next week is the LF Collaboration Summit; no call. Next LSB call
> will be two weeks from today.
>
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