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FreeBSD Java News

May 2012

November 2011

August 2011

March 2011

February 2011

July 2010

  • July 10, 2010: OpenJDK® 6 updated to Build 20.

    Greg Lewis' update of the OpenJDK® 6 port to Build 20 has been committed. See the JDK 1.6.x page for more details.

May 2010

January 2010

May 2009

March 2009

  • March 5, 2009: Patchset 9 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the ninth patchset (patchset 9) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

February 2009

July 2008

February 2008

  • February 24, 2008: Patchset 8 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the eighth patchset (patchset 8) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

  • February 24, 2008: Patchset 4 for JDK® 1.6 released

    Greg Lewis has released the fourth patchset (patchset 4) in the JDK® 1.6 series. See the JDK 1.6.x page for more details.

November 2007

  • November 15, 2007: Patchset 3 for JDK® 1.6 released

    Greg Lewis has released the third patchset (patchset 3) in the JDK® 1.6 series. See the JDK 1.6.x page for more details.

October 2007

  • October 28, 2007: Patchset 2 for JDK® 1.6 released

    Greg Lewis has released the second patchset (patchset 2) in the JDK® 1.6 series. See the JDK 1.6.x page for more details.

  • October 23, 2007: Patchset 7 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the seventh patchset (patchset 7) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

August 2007

  • August 2, 2007: Patchset 1 for JDK® 1.6 released

    Greg Lewis has released the first patchset (patchset 1) in the JDK® 1.6 series. See the JDK 1.6.x page for more details.

July 2007

  • July 26, 2007: Patchset 6 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the sixth patchset (patchset 6) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

June 2007

  • June 8, 2007: Patchset 5 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the fifth patchset (patchset 5) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

January 2007

  • January 24, 2007: Patchset 4 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the fourth patchset (patchset 4) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

April 2006

  • April 7, 2006: Patchset 3 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the third patchset (patchset 3) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

  • April 5, 2006: The FreeBSD Foundation has announced binary releases of the JDK 1.5 and JRE 1.5

    The FreeBSD Foundation has announced binary releases of the JDK 1.5 and JRE 1.5. For more details, see the press release and download page.

December 2005

  • December 19, 2005: Patchset 8 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the eighth patchset (patchset 8) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

September 2005

  • September 3, 2005: Patchset 2 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the second patchset in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

January 2005

  • January 19, 2005: Patchset 1 for JDK® 1.5 released

    Greg Lewis has released the initial patchset (patchset 1) in the JDK® 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

December 2004

  • December 13, 2004: Patchset 7 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the seventh patchset (patchset 7) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

October 2004

  • October 25, 2004: Security vulnerability in Java browser plugin.

    A security vulnerability was announced in the Java browser plugin. The jdk14 port was fixed in 1.4.2p6_7. The jdk13 port is still vulnerable. You can check the exact ports and versions which are vulnerable here.

December 2003

  • December 30, 2003: Patchset 6 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the sixth patchset (patchset 6) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

  • December 19, 2003: Patchset 9 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchset 9) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

November 2003

  • November 11, 2003: Patchset 5 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the fifth patchset (patchset 5) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

October 2003

  • October 10, 2003: Patchset 4 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the fourth patchset (patchset 4) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

August 2003

  • August 26, 2003: FreeBSD Foundation announces native support for JDK® 1.3.1

    The FreeBSD Foundation announces native support for JDK® 1.3.1 on FreeBSD.

March 2003

  • March 7, 2003: Patchset 3 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the third patchset (patchset 3) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

February 2003

  • February 12, 2003: Patchset 8 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 8) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

  • February 4, 2003: Patchset 2 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released the second patchset (patchset 2) in the JDK® 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

November 2002

  • November 15, 2002: Patchset 1 for JDK® 1.4 released

    Greg Lewis has released a first patchset (patchlevel 1) for the JDK® 1.4.0 software. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

September 2002

  • September 18, 2002: Patchset 11 for JDK® 1.2.2 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 11) for the JDK® 1.2.2 software. See the JDK 1.2.x page for more details.

  • September 17, 2002: Linux Version of J2SE 1.4.1 FCS available in ports

    Right after Sun released J2SE 1.4.1 FCS, the Linux version was made available in the FreeBSD Ports system. See J2SE 1.4.1 page for more details.

July 2002

  • July 26, 2002: Patchset 7 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 7) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

February 2002

  • February 13, 2002: Patchset 6 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 6) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

December 2001

  • December 22, 2001: FreeBSD Foundation announces license agreement with Sun Microsystems

    This was posted to [email protected]:

    The FreeBSD Foundation has secured a license from Sun Microsystems to distribute a native FreeBSD version of both the Java Development Kit (JDK®) and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Thanks to the great efforts of the FreeBSD Java team, these should be available for inclusion with the upcoming release of FreeBSD 4.5 in January, 2002.

    The general availability of a distributable version of Java will benefit end users, commercial users, and developers who use FreeBSD. Java continues to grow in popularity and has become heavily used in server side web applications, one of FreeBSD's core areas of strength. With an officially licensed binary Java distribution, FreeBSD becomes an ideal platform for execution, development, and deployment of Java based solutions.

    This agreement would not have been possible without the efforts of Nate Williams. Nate not only started the FreeBSD Java porting effort, but also brought Sun Microsystems and the Foundation together to negotiate a license.

    You can find full text of the announcement here.

October 2001

  • October 16, 2001: Patchset 5 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 5) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

September 2001

  • September 10, 2001: Patchset 4 for JDK® 1.3.1 released

    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 4) for the JDK® 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

  • September 6, 2001: Sun's Forte for Java 3.0 Community Edition ported

    Maxim Sobolev has created a port of the Sun's Forte[tm] for Java[tm], release 3.0 Community Edition integrated development environment (IDE). It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/forte.

    The port can be used either with native JDK® 1.3.1, or with Linux JDK® 1.3.1.

August 2001

  • August 27, 2001: JDK® 1.3.1 ported

    Greg Lewis has released a long-awaited port of the JDK® 1.3.1 software. It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/jdk13. See JDK 1.3.x for more details.

    It should be noted that this is very much a developer-only release and it is not recommended for use in production environment.

October 2000

  • October 14, 2000: JDK® 1.2.2 ported

    Maxim Sobolev has produced a port of the JDK® 1.2.2 software. It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/jdk12-beta. See JDK 1.2.x for more details.

    All the issues noted below are still in place, however.

    So anyone who has a Java2 port you've been waiting on submitting, now is your chance.

September 2000

  • September 15, 2000: New Java patches

    Sean O'Connell and Andrew Gallatin have created patches to enable FreeBSD to run IBM's JDK® 1.3.

    Ernst de Haan has been able to get Sun's Linux JDK® 1.3.0b9 running on 4.0-STABLE. Full details on both can be found here.

August 2000

  • August 10, 2000: Sun Java Compatibility Kit Testing

    On August 7th, 2000, the FreeBSD JDK® team was given access to Sun's JCK (Java Compatibility Kit), which will allow us to test and (hopefully!) release a binary version using the current set of patches. Unfortunately, we are unable (for legal reasons) to distribute a JDK® that hasn't been run against the JCK like we were able to with the JDK® 1.1.* releases.

    Unfortunately, as told by Sun (we have no experience *yet*), running the JCK against the port is a difficult and time-consuming process. Hopefully it won't take us the 3 months that Sun expects it to take. :(

    Finally, there are still some issues regarding Motif® that need to be resolved before a full public release can be made. Sun is working on that front, and we need to try contacting the OpenGroup to see if we can get a special exception for Motif binary distributions to use in the JDK® release.

May 2000

  • May 3, 2000: Native JDK® 1.2.2 port enters alpha test phase

    Greg Lewis has just announced that the native FreeBSD JDK® 1.2.2 port has entered alpha test stage.

    In its current form, the port will build and run on most FreeBSD releases (3.4, 4.0 and 5.0 on x86) and work is being done on the others (2.2.8 on x86 and 4.0 alpha). Most demo applets and applications run.

    Currently we are looking for enthusiasts who are willing to spend a little time testing the new port. While this is not a trivial task, there are clear step-by-step instructions on how to build and use the port.

    The patches may be found, as usual on:

    http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsddom/java/jdk.html

    More information, open issues and step-by-step instructions may be found at: http://www.kjkoster.org/java/index.html

  • May 1, 2000: Request for Enhancement - Now the number 1 RFE

    We have petitioned Sun to provide an official FreeBSD JDK2 port. We are currently in 1st place in the vote count. If you are a member of the Java Developer's Connection (it's free), you can vote for it as well http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4288745.html

March 2000

  • March 22, 2000: Pre-Alpha JDK® 1.2.2 patches available.

    Greg Lewis releases the pre-alpha patches for enterprising Java users to build their own native FreeBSD JDK® 1.2.2 from. This process is not for the faint of heart, and the resulting JDK® is not for production systems. Having said that, most AWT and Swing demo's have been found to run. There is plenty of work to do, and we need all the testers we can find. Patches and build instructions may be downloaded from http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsd-jdk122-patches-latest.tar.gz. Currently open issues and test results may be found at http://www.kjkoster.org/java/index.html.

January 2000

  • January 30, 2000: Blackdown 1.2.2RC4 JDK®

    The Linux Blackdown Port Team has released RC4 of JDK® 1.2. It has been tested on FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE and later and runs all demo applets and jfc demos. Several people have mentioned some problems running it with Apache JServ. Until it can be added to the FreeBSD port tree, it can be found at http://www.jmcm.org/tech/ports/linux_jdk.html. (Reported by Jose Marques)

November 1999

  • November 28, 1999: Request for Enhancement

    We have petitioned Sun to provide an official FreeBSD JDK2 port. We are currently in 2nd place in the vote count. If you are a member of the Java Developer's Connection (it's free), you can vote for it as well http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4288745.html

  • November 9, 1999: Another JDK® 1.1.8 release to fix a separate class of multicast bugs.

    jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-11-9.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format. jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-11-9.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format. Note, due to a number of changes in -CURRENT, the JDK® may not work properly.

October 1999

  • October 11, 1999: Work has re-started on the Java2/JDK® 1.2 port.

    Expect an early 'alpha' release of Java2/JDK® 1.2 in the coming weeks for FreeBSD 3.3-stable/ELF boxes.

September 1999

  • September 22, 1999: New JDK® 1.1.8

    Re-rolled the JDK® 1.1.8 yet again to fixup some minor bugs that people have found, as well as to speedup the JDK®. For details checkout the README.FreeBSD supplied in the releases.

    jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-9-22.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

    jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-9-22.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.

July 1999

  • July 19, 1999: New JDK® 1.1.8

    Re-rolled the JDK® 1.1.8 release to fix a couple of minor (but annoying bugs). First, the netpatch (see below) was incorporated into the build, and second an annoying Floating Point bug was found and fixed. The latter bug affected multi-threaded code that did floating point calculations and based on the code could produce completely bogus results.

    jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-7-19.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

    jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-7-19.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.

  • July 2, 1999: New 'CommAPI' porting team announced.

    Organization of FreeBSD 'CommAPI' porting team which is an effort to make JAVA's CommAPI freely available to the FreeBSD community. Project is coordinated by DRICOT Jean-Michel and will officially be maintained in http://student.ulb.ac.be/~jdricot/commapi/. Feel free to contact him if you want to join the project.

June 1999

  • June 8, 1999: Patch for UDP sockets

    A small bug was found in the JDK® 1.1.8 release which affected people using UDP sockets. If you tried to send a packet to the broadcast address, the FreeBSD JDK® refused with a permissions error. This error was fixed, and rather than re-releasing the entire release a small patchset was re-rolled for those folks who are experiencing this problem. If you experience this problem, feel free to download the gzipped tarfile and untar it wherever you installed the jdk. It will install itself over top of the old version. If you aren't experiencing the bug, there is no need to apply the patch, although it wouldn't hurt.

    AOUT.netpatch.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

    ELF.netpatch.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.

  • June 3, 1999: New JDK® 1.1.8 release

    JDK® 1.1.8 for A.OUT and ELF releases. This release adds support for older 3.*/ELF releases (without requiring any runtime loader changes), as well as fixes bugs in LOCALE and timezone support for all FreeBSD releases.

    jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-6-3.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

    jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-6-3.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.

  • June 1, 1999: JDK2 status

    Work on JDK® 1.2/JDK2 has been going very slow as the development team has been focusing it's effort on solid JDK1 releases. For most JDK2 development issues, you can use the JDK1 release and the Swing releases provided by Sun for JDK1, which works very well under FreeBSD.

April 1999

  • April 16, 1999: New JDK® 1.1.7 A.OUT release

    This fixes build problems in the March release. A new ELF release will be made to support older 3.0 releases as well sometime in the near future.

    jdk1.1.7_AOUT.V99-4-16.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

March 1999

  • March 26, 1999: ELF support for JDK® 1.1.7, as well as a new A.OUT release which includes minor bugfixes.

    jdk1.1.7_AOUT.V99-3-24.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

    jdk1.1.7_ELF.V99-3-25.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.x and 4 which use the ELF binary format. Note: This requires changes made to the runtime loader to support dladdr() functionality made on 1999/3/24. You will need to be running 3.1-stable or 4.0-current dated later than 1999/3/24. If you don't have the new loader binary or are not tracking -stable or -current, you can download it from here and install it as /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1 (you need to be root to do this):

    # install -c -s -o bin -g bin -m 555 -C -fschg
	    ld-elf.so.1 /usr/libexec

  • March 16, 1999: Updates on current development

    ELF JDK® 1.1.7 : An ELF build of JDK® 1.1.7 (for use on FreeBSD 3.x and later) is currently entering it's initial internal testing phase. A beta release should be available in a few weeks.

    JDK2 (aka JDK® 1.2): Several individuals are working on porting JDK2 to FreeBSD, but the work is progressing slowly. This is primarily due to a lack of developer time to work on this project. (The release of Blackdown's JDK2 port will assist our development when they release their source diffs.)

December 1998

  • December 21, 1998: jdk1.1.7.V98-12-21.tar.gz

    Bugfix version of JDK® 1.1.7. Thanks go to Keith White who tracked down a couple annoying (and serious) bugs in the JDK®, notably the modulo bug. This release also has the 256 file-descriptor limit bumped up to 2048. The JRE should also be much more usable, again thanks to Keith.

November 1998

  • November 14, 1998: jdk1.1.7.V98-11-5.tar.gz

    Updated to JDK® 1.1.7. Thanks go to Patrick Gardella [email protected] who provided most of the testing for this release.

September 1998

  • September 23, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-9-23.tar.gz

    The August 14 build had jre incorrectly linked in both the JDK® and the JRE, so a new release was rebuilt with the correct linkage. Otherwise, there were no changes from the older release.

August 1998

  • August 22, 1998: Web updates

    Updated page to list numerous sites who have agreed to mirror the JDK® and provide ftp access. Thanks to all!

  • August 14, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-8-14.tar.gz

    The SO_REUSEADDR option is now correctly set on ServerSockets (may affect other sockets as well.)

July 1998

  • July 21, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-7-21.tar.gz

    Updated port to JDK® 1.1.6. Thanks go to Keith White [email protected] who did most of the work to make this release happen!

    More standard 'naming' for java.version and such.

    Fixes for UDP/Multicast sockets.

    The signal abort error may be fixed (knock on wood).

    Add support for the "KOI8-R" and "CP866" encodings.

    Timezones now work correctly under FreeBSD (this required some native code, but it is embedded in the JDK® so shouldn't affect users. However, FreeBSD has one of the few (only?) VM's that correctly support Timezones now).

    sysRmdir() now correctly removes directories.

    Link in the xpg4 library to support CJK locales.

May 1998

  • May 5, 1998: Web updates

    Updated page to include instruction on how to get Sun's JWS (Java Work Shop) working under FreeBSD.

February 1998

  • February 25, 1998: jdk1.1.5.V98-2-25.tar.gz

    JDK®'s built on 2.2.2 should now work again.

    The AWT now correctly sets the Window name.

    Fixed obscure bug that could cause a core dump if you hit a button in a dialog box multiple times.

    Fixed bug where SHMEM wasn't released when using images, causing a leak.

  • February 12, 1998: New FTP Mirror and Web Updates

    Johan Larsson graciously provided an ftp mirror site for the JDK®, so if you have an aversion to using HTTP, then feel free to grab it from his site.

    Replaced the 'Steaming Cup of Java' logo with the 'Jump to Java' logo, which is more politically (and legally) acceptable to SUN's lawyers.

  • February 9, 1998: jdk1.1.5.V98-2-8.tar.gz

    Fixed bugs in Process.waitFor()

    Modified the way the Motif library was linked in. This will allow anyone with a Motif library (static or dynamic) to build their own JDK® once the patchkit is released. If their Motif license allows for it, they can also make binary releases available.

    Non blocking reads on PIPE did not work reliably on all versions of the OS.

    Multicast now works.

January 1998

  • January 10, 1998: New JDK® porting team announced

    Organization of FreeBSD JDK® porting team, which now jointly creates new JDK® releases for FreeBSD.

    New JDK® 1.1.5 binary, which has Motif statically compiled in. (Unfortunately, this release was lost in a disk crash on the ftp server.)

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