According to the Java version string spec (JEPs 223 and 322) the first part of the version string is a sequence of numbers separated by periods. The sequence can be of arbitrary length. However, in the OpenJDK configure scripts, the sequence length is fixed to exactly four numbers.

It will be helpful to be able to allow the addition of extra numbers to the version string for companies (like us) that might want to add some vendor-specific version information to it.

I propose to allow the addition of, say, 3 extra numbers (we can do more or fewer, I picked the number 3 somewhat arbitrarily) and let's call them extra1, extra2, and extra3 (other name suggestions are welcome).

Someone who builds OpenJDK will be able to optionally set these numbers with:

configure --with-version-extra1=<num1> --with-version-extra2=<num2> --with-version-extra3=<num3>

or alternatively with:

configure --with-version-string=<version-string-with-up-to-seven-numbers>