>
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Paul Fisher
> >
> > "John Keiser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > un-splintering the community's resources.
> >
> > I really don't see the community's resources as being splintered.
> > Transvirtual is working on their libs, and free software hackers are
> > working on the GNU Classpath libs. :) Transvirtual is motivated by the
> > fact that they can relicense their code base for proprietary use and
> > modification -- they of course can't do that if they start accepting
> > outside code.
> >
>
> Oh wait, really? I just read that a second time and understood it for the
> first time ... so the free software community is *not* working on Kaffe's
> libs? I was under the impression that free software hackers *were* working
> on it. I haven't been lurking on their list for a while, though, so perhaps
> things have changed.
>
It is true that Transvirtual holds the copyright on the Kaffe source.
Transvirtual requires contributors to sign their copyright over to them.
In exchange, people are allowed to access the sources of the open edition
(only X11-based awt, no DOS support) and they can use them under a
restricted copyright (GPL). A lot of people have found this arrangement
acceptable and use Kaffe and have contributed to it. Similarly,
contributors to classpath are required to sign the copyright over to
the FSF. Unlike the FSF, Transvirtual is a for-profit company.
Some people did not find that arrangement acceptable: for instance, Cygnus
chose to abandon the GPLed versions of Kaffe for their egcs/gcj project.
Instead, they used the last BSD-copyright version of Kaffe to base their
Java run-time on, and are in the process of replacing all Kaffe code
with code to which Cygnus holds the copyright. Their motives are similar
to Transvirtual's.
The fact that TVT holds the copyright allows them the rerelease the custom
edition under a different, proprietary copyright to paying customers.
I don't think anybody cares (and I don't want to start a discussion about
this) whether all that means "free software hackers are working on it."
>
> I am willing to undertake the Kaffe integration project once I am done with
> Japhar integration and I am in better contact with the Kaffe development
> team (I want to make sure I include any bugfixes they make into my modified
> version so that when Classpath goes in, it is perfectly in synch with the
> current version of Kaffe). If someone else here knows more about it, it'd
Like classpath and japhar, Kaffe provides access to its CVS repository via
anonymous CVS. See www.transvirtual.com for details. The sources there
are always up-to-date; TVT's improvements usually take 2-4 weeks to get in,
contributions by the other developers go in immediately, and bugfixes that
people sent to the list are always picked up pretty quickly.
> be good for someone *besides* me to do it, so that our knowledge base for VM
> integration expands. Two cooks in this case are better than one, as long as
> we work together.
>
> I hope we work with Kaffe rather than shun them. It would be *perfect* if
> they decided, once we were stable, to use Classpath as their primary class
> libraries. Then they and we would both benefit immensely.
>
I don't think a decision as to what class libraries Kaffe uses needs to be
made. If anybody wrote the VM-layer classpath requires for Kaffe, individual
users would be allowed to use the classpath libraries and the Kaffe VM
together. They could even redistribute it, although only under the GPL.
In fact, I believe that doing that would show how strong the definition of
the VM layer actually is.
- Godmar
