Paul Fisher wrote:
> Gtk+ has already solved these problems for us. I'm not for
> reinventing the wheel, especially when it means loosing important
> functionality provided by the X11 server and Gdk.
<ruminate>
Not to be a stick in the mud, but a lot of what the FSF does is reinvent
wheels when the existing wheels are proprietary. I understand that GTK is
free (and X11, but a bit more confusedly), so I agree that the expedient
route is not to reimplement those for an initial release. But we ARE
reinventing classes.zip/rt.jar, with the possibility of enhancing some
functionality, though my guess is that it will be a while until
Japhar+Classpath comes anywhere near the performance of Sun's JDK, even
the blackdown port. We're not addressing a huge marketplace clamoring for
a free Java implementation -- hell, most people don't understand why Sun's
license doesn't qualify ("it didn't cost me anything, and I was able to
download the source"). The only immediately tangible gain I can see from
running Classpath is that I won't be violating the GPL on a daily basis
(by running free software with a proprietary VM and libraries). If the
FSF really wanted to encourage Classpath development, they'd hit me with a
cease and desist. :-)
</ruminate>
I might politely suggest that the differing opinions for windowing
implementations should be viewed as outside the scope of Classpath, as
long as Classpath can be built to support differing implementations. (If
that means you download a separate jar for the AWT stuff, that's probably
the simplest solution.) I'd love to see JOS get off the ground running
Classpath libraries and Michael's windowing system, which sounds damn
cool, so we shouldn't write those ideas out of consideration.
Wes
P.S. For a brief moment in time, the company I work for was known as
"Reinvent Communications." :-)
