Why project Jigsaw / JPMS?

Solution 1:

Jigsaw and OSGi are trying to solve the same problem: how to allow coarser-grained modules to interact while shielding their internals.

In Jigsaw's case, the coarser-grained modules include Java classes, packages, and their dependencies.

Here's an example: Spring and Hibernate. Both have a dependency on a 3rd party JAR CGLIB, but they use different, incompatible versions of that JAR. What can you do if you rely on the standard JDK? Including the version that Spring wants breaks Hibernate and visa versa.

But, if you have a higher-level model like Jigsaw you can easily manage different versions of a JAR in different modules. Think of them as higher-level packages.

If you build Spring from the GitHub source you'll see it, too. They've redone the framework so it consists of several modules: core, persistence, etc. You can pick and choose the minimal set of module dependencies that your application needs and ignore the rest. It used to be a single Spring JAR, with all the .class files in it.

Update: Five years later - Jigsaw might still have some issues to resolve.

Solution 2:

AFAIK The plan is to make the JRE more modular. I.e. have smaller jars which are optional and/or you can download/upgrade only the functionality you need.

Its to make it less bloated and give you the option of dropping legacy modules which perhaps most people don't use.