19 May 2009, 09:17

OpenJDK 6 for Mac OS X

A beta of OpenJDK 6 for Mac OS X is now available, thanks to Landon Fuller, creator of the SoyLatte Java 6 port for Mac OS X. The OpenJDK 6 port has the advantage of using the "GPL2 with Classpath Exception" licence, unlike SoyLatte which was only available under the Java Research Licence. The JRL placed numerous restrictions on licensees and prevented binary distribution of SoyLatte, but with the new OpenJDK 6 port it is now possible to redistribute binary versions.

OpenJDK 6 for Mac OS X, like SoyLatte, does not do native Mac OS X graphics, but instead uses the X11 server bundled with Mac OS X. According to Fuller, the OpenJDK 6 port should be the runtime equivalent of Java 6 Update 11, making it more up to date than JRL based ports. The beta release is available via MacPorts as "openjdk6" or directly from the SoyLatte web page as a binary only release. Fuller has only tested the release on Mac OS X 10.5 as his ability to test on 10.4 is constrained.

(djwm)

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