These are great ideas. How hard do you think it would be to implement them?
By the way, you point out that the WO license does not allow you to
decompile the jars. I would suggest that unzipping the jar files to get
a individual class files is not "decompiling" anything.
If one is decompiling the class files to get at some version of the java
files as written by Apple, that would be "decompiling".
Have I asked a lawyer about this? I only ask a question of a lawyer if I
want to be told what I cannot do. I do not need to ask about something
that I can do.
cheers - ray
On 12/10/22 12:53, Wolfgang Hartmann via Webobjects-dev wrote:
Hello,
That the WO-Jars are closed source makes it really hard to move to the
new Java-Module-System. But I had a similar problem once and was able to
solve it. Maybe this can help here. But that requirement did not involve
My requirement was:
* I wanted to deploy a Java-Background-Service (a small WebApp with
REST-Interfaces) on Windows Desktop-Machines
* I wanted to have a single "exe" to start and the app should run.
Using the Java-Module-System it's possible to create an exe with the
own code, all dependencies and a stripped-down mini-Java-VM with
just the required parts. So you get an "exe" with around 20 MB which
can run on any Windows without the requirement that Java is installed
* This "exe" was distributed and started by Windows-Group-Policies
(That was the reason for this "one exe deployment")
I was able to do this with the following approach:
* Own Java-Maven-Project with my code. The project was built as
maven-"fat-jar" (so all class-files in one big jar)
* All project-dependencies were regular maven-dependencies. Most of
the dependencies were not in Java-Module-Format. And very important
here: You are just able to use Java-Module-Build when your code and
ALL your dependencies are in module-format!!
* I then provided an own "java-module-file" for alle my code AND all
the code of the project-dependencies (listing of all packages, ...
Basically all the stuff the Java-Module-System requires)
* My fat-jar-build throw this all together and builded a new jar which
contained my class-files, all dependency-class-files and a
java-module-info and therefore was a valid java-module-jar which I
could bundle as an exe-file
So what to do with WebObjects? (Important: This is just an idea, I did
not try to do this!)
* Creating a new Project "WebObject-JavaModule"
* List all WebObjects-Jars as Maven-Dependencies
* Build-Target as "fat jar"
o Filter all classes which do not belong to WebObjects because
they are provided by the Java-VM or by other dependencies
o Filter all classes where ProjectWonder provides an
improved/patched version
* Write a java-module-file for all the remaining WebObjects-Class-Files
* Build this as "fat jar" and use this instead of the "old
webobjects-jars" in your projects or Wonder-Projects
* Now all Wonder-Projects could be updated to Java-Module-Format (As
long as all the other depencies of them are also in Module-Format)
But be aware of licence-restrictions: The WebObjects-Jars are
distributed with the WebObjects-Licence. The licence states that it is
not allowed to decompile the Jars and maybe this new
"WebObjects-JavaModule" could be seen as derivative work and could be
legally not allowed to exists.
Best Regards,
Wolfgang
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Von:* Aaron Rosenzweig via Webobjects-dev <webobjects-dev@lists.apple.com>
*Gesendet:* Samstag, 10. Dezember 2022 16:36
*An:* WebObjects-Dev List <webobjects-dev@lists.apple.com>
*Betreff:* Java 17? Half or Full?
This is both a topic for both pure NeXT/Apple WO as well as a WOnder.
Your WO deployments, are they on Java 17? Are they half or full Java 17?
Please chime in.
In our case, at present, we are developing and deploying on a Java 17 VM
but using Java 1.8 (version 8) compliance. I call this “Java 17 Half"
Definitions:
Java 17 Half -> Developing and deploying on Java 17 but using Java 1.8
compliance.
Java 17 Full -> Not only using a Java 17 VM but also targeting v17
compliance and using JPMS (Java Package Management System) which was
introduced with Java 9.
PHB -> “So I was golfing with my buddies and found out they are all
using Java 17 *sealed* classes. This is so cool and will revolutionize
our codebase. I want you to start using it immediately. It was
introduced with Java 17. I’m so glad we are on a 17 VM.”
Me -> “Can’t do it”
PHB -> “Why not? You told me we went to Java 17 over a year ago.”
Me -> “We did and are on Java 17, but we compile for Java 1.8”
PHB -> “That’s no good. We need to be fully modern. We need to be able
to use new constructs as they emerge. Why are we compiling for Java 1.8
? Is it a problem with WOnder?”
Me -> “Because our core frameworks are closed source, from NeXT/Apple,
our hands are somewhat tied. That’s part of the problem. The other part
is that class loading changed dramatically with Java 9 onward and broke
a lot of things for many people. Because we leverage so much from Apple
and WOnder, we pretty much are stuck. Our frameworks are stuck in java 8
compliance and therefore so are we”
Definitions:
Old Class loader -> Java 1.8 (version 8) and older.
New Class loader -> Java 9 and newer.
The new class loader tries to avoid “Jar Hell” but that’s something we
actually enjoyed about the old class loader. What Oracle saw as a
weakness and sought to fix, Sun saw as a strength. It’s causing us
trouble right now with going Java 17 Full. Here’s an example.
Consider a jar named “animals_v1.jar” that has classes for birds and
other creatures. Imagine that there is also a newer “animals_v2.jar” Let
me diagram them below in pseudocode:
animals_v1.jar:
com.acme.Duck.speak()
animals_v2.jar:
com.acme.Duck.speak()
com.acme.Duck.hasFeathers()
Suppose you are using the old class loader and somehow had both jars in
your class path. It matters which jar is first because the first one
wins when there are multiple definitions in the class path for
“com.acme.Duck”. You could have a situation where things compile but at
runtime there’s a failure because we can’t ask “hasFeathers()” and it’s
situations like these that Oracle considered a design flaw or “Jar Hell.”
In our case, we considered this functionality of the old class loader a
strength. As long as we are careful, we can avoid the pitfalls but also
do clever patching of closed source Apple frameworks like so:
Apple java frameworks:
com.apple.NSArray
WOnder java frameworks:
com.apple.NSArray
By putting WOnder’s frameworks first in the class path, and being
careful to not remove needed functionality of NSArray, we can
“overwrite” Apple's implementation with an improved one while letting
the rest of Apple’s code work directly with our NSArray replacement.
Unfortunately this breaks the new class loader. It’s not allowed. Cannot
have NSArray defined in more than one named place. Even if we take
WOnder out of the equation, we still have problems with Apple’s JavaXML
framework where it redefines W3C and DOM objects that java.xml named
module natively defines in modern Java.
If we want to compile for modern java on new VMs what can we do? I’m no
expert, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m trying to make sense of what
our options are. There is no easy path. There is no set of simple VM
arguments or anything magic that takes a small amount of effort. We’d
have to do something like TreasureBoat where we take ownership of the
private libraries. We can’t surgically replace a few objects in the
private libraries anymore by class path ordering and I don’t think
Aspect-Oriented Programming nor Dependency Injection can save us here
either. We also now have conflicts in pure Apple libraries with what is
currently built-into Java.
How long are we ok using modern VMs but compiling for 1.8? “OK” meaning
functional but not allowed to use new Java language features.
2026 is when Amazon stops supporting 1.8 JVMs
2030 is when Oracle stops supporting 1.8 JVMs
I could not determine when javac compliance level support might be
dropped for Java 1.8 on modern VMs. That said, I guess it would be at
least until 2030 when Oracle no longer provides 1.8 VM support. It might
last longer than that… perhaps 2040. Hard to say. Lots of people are
struggling with JPMS (Java Modules) in similar situations as us. Such as
this quote: "Your program might even have a dep on some jar that was
compiled under jdk4 and the author and source are nowhere to be found
(or went out of business a decade ago)... and suddenly it breaks under
java9. Things like that are largely what prevented mass adoption of jdk9
immediately.”
We might be able to be creative by taking jars from multiple frameworks,
putting them in one modularized framework, and exposing something for a
modern java app. I’m not clear that would work but maybe. I think there
are Apple frameworks which conflict with named module java.xml which
likely cannot be worked around. This guy did something like this for his
legacy frameworks (not WO):
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53245628/jdk9-automatic-modules-and-split-packages-dependencies <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53245628/jdk9-automatic-modules-and-split-packages-dependencies>
In closing, I don’t think it’s possible without rewriting closed-source
Apple libraries and also rewriting WOnder to target compliance level
beyond 1.8. Is there anyone building with compliance level beyond 1.8?
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (Webobjects-dev@lists.apple.com)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/webobjects-dev/ray%40ganymede.org
This email sent to r...@ganymede.org
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (Webobjects-dev@lists.apple.com)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/webobjects-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
