Nic Ferrier wrote:
> *Supplying JDE to the Java community*
> Does anyone think that the JDE would be best placed on the GNU
> project's Java page?
>
> This might ease RMS' concerns about compatability.
>
> *Free Java and JDE*
> I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that Richard is not well-versed
> with Java (no one can know _everything_) and probably doesn't fully
> understand the issues with the free Java's against the Sun Java.
>
> It seems to me that there are no defaults in JDE that wouldn't
> automatically work with Kaffe.
>
> As far as I recall Kaffe uses links to provide javac and so on but
> these would still work with the JDE.
>
> So implicitly JDE supports the GNU free VM out of the box, as it
> were.
>
> At the end of the day this is about getting as many Java programmers
> to use emacs and JDE because it is free and the best tool for the
> job.
>
> I'd appreciate feedback on this. What do other people think?
I agree that the JDE should be placed on the GNU project's Java page as
well as in the emacs distribution. Because I happened to find the JDE,
I was able to convince my development team to switch from proprietary,
inferior IDE's to emacs/JDE, which further gave us the freedom to
develop on whichever platform we chose. The JDE gives me complete
freedom to use whichever VM, compiler, etc. that I choose. When GPL'd
VM's get to the point where I can productively develop the applications
that I must at work, I will use them. The fact that the JDE references
Sun's VM by default is merely pragmatic in my opinion.
I believe that there is no conflict between the JDE and the spirit of
the GPL and should be given full status in the "GNU world".
--
Brian Stiles
