It seems to me that the JCK compliance testing is analogous to Alpha testing
and that the initial Blackdown releases will initially be of Beta quality
(ie. once it's released we'll have plenty of opportunities to complain about
what doesn't work ;-). But, since the NDA Blackdown signed doesn't allow
releasing the JDK until it passes the JCK tests, it's pretty much a moot
point in any event. The alternative is that the Blackdown team could have
not signed the NDA and then we'd be waiting a heck of a lot longer than we
have for Java 2 on Linux. Just my $0.02.
-Andy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Trevor Harmon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 4:43 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: JCK licensing restriction (was: JDK1.2)
>
>
> I disagree on that last point, and I was wondering if anyone else feels
> the same. (I'm referring to the part about not releasing any version of
> the Linux JDK 1.2 until passing compatibility tests being a good thing.)
> I think it's not such a good thing because, as I understand it, it
> prevents any form of public beta testing. Think about it this way: If the
> JDK doesn't pass the JCK, then it means there are bugs somewhere, but the
> developer community can't help the Blackdown team find/kill those bugs if
> a public beta isn't released. So, although one might think that
> forcing the
> JDK to pass the JCK would reduce bugs in the final release, I would guess
> that it actually produces *more* bugs since the thousands and thousands of
> Java-Linux developers out there are prevented from helping out with the
> beta test cycle. It also means that the beta cycle might take longer
> since the pre-releases can only be tested by members of Blackdown. Am I
> missing something here, or is the JCK restriction of the license really
> not such a great thing after all?
>
> Trevor
>
> Nathan Meyers wrote:
>
> > The answer is that it's being worked on, it'll be out soon (no date
> > promised), and the Blackdown team is forbidden by the license to release
> > anything until it has passed the compatibility tests (this is a good
> > thing).
>
>
>
>
