On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 14:32 -0600, Andrew Gaffney wrote:
> harald wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > recently downloaded and installed Gentoo on my Sparc Sun machine.
> > Unfortunately i did not find any package containing java for this
> > architecture. is it possible to install any other java (source) package
> > instead? is java support planned by gentoo foundation for these types of
> > machines?
> 
> The foundation has very little to do with development.
> 
> > please let me know, java support is very important for me. 
> 
> Last I heard, the last version of java that worked on sparc was blackdown 1.4.2 
> (or something like that), but it had a security bug. If java on sparc is really 
> important to you, then you probably need to run Solaris. Alternatively, you can 
> convince the blackdown guys (or one of the other JRE/JDK providers) to do 
> another sparc release.

Rumor has it that sun is opening the source to their JRE/JDK, although I
can't confirm nor do I know quite what that actually means.  If true,
though, a user on IRC has expressed a strong interest in working on it,
and if all that happens, I am sure we would support the effort.
Unfornately I don't recall off hand who that was.  You might /join
#genoo-sparc (on freenode) and ask who the user is and make contact with
him.

There are one or two java source packages in portage which do build and
run.  But if "java support is very important for [you]," you would
almost certainly find them to be deficient.
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Gaffney                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
> Gentoo Linux Developer                                   Installer Project
> Today's lesson in political correctness:      "Go asphyxiate on a phallus"

Hoping this information is useful to you,
Regards,
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc)