Tim and his company support the MS-extensions in their custom edition.
While Tim can speak best for his company, let me point out two things:
+ before we add those extensions (from what I can tell, we're talking about
a microsoft directory in libraries/javalib and a few .c files that go
in a shared library -- no changes or restrictions in the VM or the rest of
the libraries), I'd rather see Tim add the new code generator or
support for gcj. There are indeed more pressing issues than adding support
for Microsoft Java.
+ Secondly, just what makes Microsoft Java better or worse than Sun Java?
For us, that is, for the open source kaffe, the deciding factor as to
whether to add or not add a given feature or API, should not be which
company developed it, but whether there's people who really need and/or
use it. Plus, what its technical merits are.
Do people use Microsoft Java a lot? I don't know. But if they
did, it would be nice to support it in Kaffe. Should Tim decide to offer
the code for the public edition at some point, we can discuss the
question of whether it's worth adding or not. Then, people who want it
can speak up and if nobody wants it, there's no reason to add it.
Finally, may I remind people that there's currently no running version
of Kaffe for Windows (minus maybe a non-windowing version that runs
under Cygwin), so this discussion---like so many discussions on news outlets
such as slashdot---is a bit premature and pointless anyway.
- Godmar
