2008/9/12 Sean Qiu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > 2008/9/12 Anders Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> Hi, >> >> I'm new to the Harmony project and was wondering about the relationship >> between Harmony and the GNU Classpath project, e.g.: >> - How much (if anything) of the Harmony class libraries come from the GNU >> Classpath project? > > None, Harmony is delivered with Apache License V2 [1], while GNU > Classpath is delivered with GPL. > These two licenses are incompatible, so they can't adopt each other's > code at all. >
Wrong. GNU Classpath is licensed under the more liberal GPLv2 + Classpath exception. 'As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version.' IANAL, so I will not comment any more on their respective compatibility, suffice to say that I think it would have been possible, given time and effort from those involved. There was much talk about collaboration between the two projects when Harmony started, but problems arose. See the mailing list archives for the details, but from my perspective I don't believe the new Harmony project did much to engender a good relationship with the existing GNU Classpath project. >> - Do the two efforts continue in parallel or is one emerging as being more >> likely to flourish and attract future development? > > I don't familiar with GNU Classpath, but I know Harmony gradually > becomes mature. > Harmony has clear high level roadmap and detailed close goals [2]. > Harmony has a active community which comprises of active committers > and contributors [3]. > OpenJDK is likely to attract the most future development. Most former GNU Classpath hackers now work on this, under the IcedTea banner. Some GNU Classpath development continues; there should be a 0.98 release soon, which will form part of GCJ 4.4 as well. I definitely think there still should be an independent (i.e. non Sun) implementation of the JDK, if just to prove it's possible. It's possible to take a view of OpenJDK as being an attempt by Sun to slow such a development; while their RI has been released under the GPLv2 + Classpath exception (thus solving the problem of a Free complete JDK), the TCK and the standards process remains closed. >> - If they're both active, which one is more complete? > > You can get the api diff from here[4], though the data may be out-of-data. > Harmony has been improved quite a lot during this period. > The GNU Classpath data here is also outdated. Please refer to the comparisons on the front page of our website: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath which are live and updated multiple times daily. > What's more, Harmony has a virtual machine implementation as well > which is called DRLVM [5]. > And Harmony classlib could be integrated with IBM VM or Jrockit VM. > GNU Classpath arose in the late 1990s through a merging of existing class library efforts in VMs such as GCJ and Kaffe, to become solely a class library project used by multiple VMs. One of the advantages of GNU Classpath over the other two is a more proven VM interface as a result. It supports GCJ (AOT compilation), JikesRVM (Java-based), JamVM, Kaffe, CACAO and IKVM.net (.NET-based) among others and has a clear well-specified Java-based interface. All those mentioned are Free software. Note that the latter two now use OpenJDK (CACAO as well as GNU Classpath, IKVM.net instead of). For Harmony, your list only includes two Free VMs: DRLVM (which it was developed for) and JikesRVM, support for which is still nascent. Both IBM's and JRockIt are proprietary. > > Correct me if I am wrong :) > I think I did, where you were ;) >> >> Thanks, >> Anders >> > > [1] http://harmony.apache.org/license.html > [2] http://harmony.apache.org/roadmap.html > [3] http://harmony.apache.org/contributors.html > [4] http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/htmlout/ > [5] http://harmony.apache.org/subcomponents/drlvm/index.html > -- > Best Regards > Sean, Xiao Xia Qiu > > China Software Development Lab, IBM > -- Andrew :-) Support Free Java! Contribute to GNU Classpath and the OpenJDK http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath http://openjdk.java.net PGP Key: 94EFD9D8 (http://subkeys.pgp.net) Fingerprint: F8EF F1EA 401E 2E60 15FA 7927 142C 2591 94EF D9D8
