On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 21:42 -0700, stuporglue wrote: > Is there a difference between Sun's java, IBM's java, and Blackdown's > java? If so, what? > Also, is there a difference between a "java developer's kit" and "sdk"? > > I ask because if there's not, then I've been wrong all these weeks, > and IBM does have the 1.4.2 java sdk for ppc linux...of course, if I'm > wrong, I guess I'll know soon enough, but I'm still curious as to > what's up with the naming convention.
Blackdown is essntially a third-party direct port of Sun's code. To my knowledge they make no changes or optimizations to the code. When Sun's JDK 1.3.1 came out, it *was* the blackdown port. Blackdown's port is useful because they have several versions compiled with different gcc/glibc combinations. For example for a long time, Sun's JDK was gcc 2.95/glibc 3.1. This meant that the plugin for mozilla wouldn't work on the newer builds of mozilla, since they were built with gcc 3.1. Now that Sun's JDK 1.4.2 is only build with gcc 3.x and glibc 3.2 or greater, if you want the java plugin for an old platform running an old version of mozilla, you'll need the blackdown version that maches that. I pretty much consider blackdown to be first port, and then when it stabilizes, sun takes that and makes it their official jdk. IBM makes their own VM under license from Sun, which is not a straight port of Sun's. They tweak it and optimize it for performance. The JDK itself (compiler, class library), though, is Sun's. The JRE is the Java Runtime Environment, which is the vm plus runtime. There is no compiler. You can't run a java app server like tomcat with the JRE. For distributing java apps, though, all the end user needs is the JRE. The JDK (java developers kit) has been known for several versions as the J2SDK (Java 2 Software Development Kit). JDK==J2SDK Hope that makes it as clear as mud. Michael > > ~Michael > > > ===================== > iBook 800MHz - Gentoo 2.6.9-rc2 > www.stuporglue.com > PPC Linux, Pictures I've made, random stuff > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list -- ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
