Gerald wrote:
>
> Why has it been so difficult to port Sun's Java2 source to Linux? I
> was under the impression that
>
> a) Sun isolated their platform-dependent parts,
> b) all the rest of the code is in portable, standard C, and
> c) the source code is fairly well-organized.
>
> I would also tend to believe that Sun would probably use POSIX and/or
> de-facto system calls for system-related tasks such as threads and
> I/O.
>
(Keep in mind that I'm not part of the Blackdown team; I'm just another
licensee, so I'm not speaking on their behalf)
Part of what makes porting so difficult is that even though the porting
team get a (very) little bit of a break in that they can start with the
Solaris sources, there are still a lot of files they have to touch to do
a port.
One of the problems they have to face is adapting code written for
64-bit Solaris/SPARC to run on 32-bit Intel x86-based systems. Solaris
and Linux have many differences in their low-level system calls. As much
as we all like to believe in "de facto" system calls, there isn't an OS
around that I've ever seen that implements *all* of the POSIX
specifications (unfortunately).
Now, none of the porting tasks are particularly difficult *if* you have
a team of engineers dedicated to nothing but porting Java over. The
Blackdown team are working on this in their spare time, for no pay, just
because they believe in Java and Linux. Half the time, they don't even
get any kind of thanks or support from their users.
Frankly, I'm extremely impressed that they've come as far as they have
already, and with the quality that they've achieved (even for a
pre-release).
--
Jeff Galyan
http://www.anamorphic.com
http://www.sun.com
jeffrey dot galyan at sun dot com
talisman at anamorphic dot com
Sun Certified Java(TM) Programmer
======================================================================
Linus Torvalds on Microsoft and software development:
"... if it's a hobby for me and a job for you, why are you doing such a
shoddy job of it?"
The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of my
employer.
Sun Microsystems, Inc., has no connection to my involvement with the
Mozilla Organization.
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