Hi,
Very happy to know that kaffe is up again. I think it is the best available JVMs(abundance in no. of platforms it supports for a minimal size) if it is maintained well and updated to latest standards. (E.g. unix-pthread, multiple instances, Java 2 compliancy etc.) Reards Prasad > > Hi, > > I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Jim Pick. > > I have volunteered to take over the reigns of the kaffe project from > it's original author, Tim Wilkinson. > > I've been following Kaffe's progress since about the time I first got > involved in free software (around 1996). In the past, I've been an > active Debian maintainer, and I also ran LinuxHQ.com, KernelNotes.org, > and Kernel.org for a while, amongst other things. > > I know Tim quite well, as I moved to Berkeley, California (from > Canada) to work with him and Peter Mehlitz at Transvirtual about two > years ago. Tim is currently involved in the process of starting a new > company, having left Transvirtual at the end of November last year. I > still work at Transvirtual though, and I'm still good friends with Tim > (we usually meet for coffee in the mornings). It was during one of > those morning coffees that I asked Tim what was happening with > Kaffe.org, and whether or not he was planning to do any more work on > it. > > As I suspected, he stated that he really doesn't have time to do > anymore work on it (especially since he no longer works at > Transvirtual). He stated that he'd be happy if I took it over. I > also checked with the new CEO of Transvirtual, Chris Herron, and Peter > Mehlitz, if it was OK with them if I did some work to try to get the > Kaffe.org project moving again, and they thought it was a good idea > and were very supportive. > > I've announced my intentions to the core team, and they all seemed OK > with the idea -- I asked if anybody else wanted the job, but there > were no takers. So I guess I've got the go ahead to do this. :-) > > I've also taken over development of Transvirtual's internal, > proprietary version of Kaffe (now called KaffePro), so I'm in the > situation where I can spend a lot of time thinking about JVM > implementations. :-) > > Anyways, here's what I'm planning to do: > > 1) Setup a new machine and website for kaffe.org, so everything can be > centralized on one site. > > Transvirtual has donated a machine and rackspace for it, and I've > already set it up. I've already moved the DNS and the ftp site > onto it. The current website is looking pretty old and > out-of-date, so I'm going to replace it with something simpler. > > I'm hoping I can get the CVS archive from Ean Schuessler at > Brainfood so I can set it up on the new machine. Also, down the > road, it would be nice to migrate the mailing list to the new > machine so Daniel Veillard doesn't have to maintain it. > > I thought about using SourceForge, but I decided against it. > > 2) Make a new release as soon as possible. > > Version 1.0.6 came out in July, 2000, and there hasn't been a > release since (although there has been CVS activity). I'd like to > do a minimal amount of testing, and see if we can get it out, > perhaps as early as next week. > > 3) Clarify the relationship between Transvirtual and Kaffe.org. > > As a long-time kaffe-watcher, I would like to see Kaffe.org be a > very open project, which incorporates code from, and interoperates > with all the other free virtual machine projects out there. I > definitely see Kaffe.org as being an independent project that isn't > controlled by Transvirtual. > > Transvirtual is willing to donate time and code to the project to > make it successful. On the other hand, it would be best if > everybody was comfortable with the fact that my employer is > actively developing a proprietary version of kaffe, called > KaffePro, which is designed to address the needs of the commercial > market for clean room Java virtual machine implementations. > > As a commercial software company built on developing Intellectual > Property, Transvirtual needs to be selective about what it does > and does not contribute to the project. You can expect that > Transvirtual won't hold back bug fixes from the free version, and > will not prevent others from contributing to the project. > > Transvirtual, as a company, was founded with Kaffe as it's primary > product, so you can expect to see Transvirtual continue to use, > maintain and protect the Kaffe trademark for it's own purposes. > It is important to Transvirtual that Kaffe.org is successful, but > also that it is clear to the public that Kaffe.org's JVM > implementation is separate from Transvirtual's KaffePro product, > even though they share a common heritage. > > (whew, glad that's over, I'm afraid I was starting to sound like a > lawyer) > > 4) Start active development on a new major release of kaffe. > > I've got a lot of ideas for what should be done with it. But I'll > discuss those separately because I'd like to see some contributions > and some debate. :-) > > Anyways, this email has been long enough. I'm looking forward to > working on kaffe and Kaffe.org - it should be fun! > > Cheers, > > - Jim > > p.s. If you're reading this, and you're going to JavaOne this year in > San Francisco, let's get together for beers. :-) >