Help and input needed

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi all,

My GNU Classpath TODO list is growing. And during the last weeks of this
year my time for playing and hacking on GNU Classpath will be minimal.
So I am asking for some help on issues that I cannot handle right now
and that might have to wait till next year otherwise. They are mainly
giving input to other groups about our current status and/or
compatibility with their projects. Just sending a nicely worded email to
the appropriate mailinglist will probably do the trick to get the
discussion started (and we might learn a lot about what is required from
GNU Classpath for other projects).

- java-gnome bindings. I have already posted it on this list twice so I
  won't repeat how important I think it is to have our stuff work nicely
  with it!

- freedesktop.org has a Desktop Technology Road Map at
  http://freedesktop.org/~jg/roadmap.html
  The current entry for "Java" now says:

        Java is available from Sun for Linux, and there are several
        static Java compilers (e.g. GCJ, part of the GCC compiler suite
        and Jikes from IBM), and may be preinstalled. The Blackdown
        project provides community source distributions of Sun's Java
        for additional platforms that Sun may not. Java release 1.4.2
        introduces Swing support based on GTK2 look and feel, which aids
        in the natural integration of GUI applications built with Java
        on the open source desktop. As this deploys widely over 2004,
        Java applications using Sun's VM will share the look and feel of
        Gnome desktops.

  Since they do have a big entry on 'Microsoft Interoperability' it
  would be nice if we could give suggestions for 'Java Interoperability
  and/or Compatibility'. Two very important things to mention would be
  at least the above mentioned java-gnome bindings and of course our
  gtk+ peers and the recent 2D work. See the whole document for
  technologies that are interesting to them and us. I think we have (or
  should have) hooks for almost anything they thing is important
  (especially when you add related projects like libxmlj, tritonous,
  etc.). Comments can be send to
  <https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/xdg-list>. But can of
  course also be discussed on this mailinglist first.

- A similar initiative is "UserLinux" which has a white paper at
  http://userlinux.com/white_paper.html from Bruce Perens.
  Their knowledge about GNU Classpath and friends is also a bit out of
  tune with reality. It currently says: "Java-like environment: It
  sounds as if GCJ/Classpath is in the lead among free Java-like
  implementations, but is not up to Java 2.0 and even misses the Java
  1.3 standard. There is an implementation of Swing, and Eclipse can now
  be built . Some of the service providers will need to provide a
  Sun-derived JDK as an option." Discussion about a better description
  for that document for the our different free platforms can be done at:
  http://lists.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
  (Or again first on this mailinglist.) The fact that kaffe can now run
  JBoss must be mentioned!
  http://www.kaffe.org/~robilad/jboss-3.2.2-screenshot.png

Note that I think that both of the above initiatives are a bit to eager
to get popular really quickly. They seem to not mind that much if "kind
of proprietary technology" slips through. Probably the idea is that they
can fix that up later. Personally I think that is a big mistake. (That
is also the reason I always focus on Free Software explicitly.)

Both the above items depend a bit (but can also help us with clearly
formulating) the next entry:

- GNU Classpath 1.0 Roadmap
  Our current "Roadmap" says:

        GNU Classpath 1.0 will be fully compatible with the 1.1 and
        largely compliant with the 1.2 API specification and will have a
        stable API for interacting with virtual machines.

  This is a bit minimal. It should say something about the minimal
  coverage, the state of the documentation and the testsuite.
  I have idea about it, but nothing concrete yet. Hopefully giving input
  to the above to items on the overview/white papers will help us focus
  a bit more. Discussion of our goals for what we would consider 1.0 is
  very welcome. This is also an important point we can discuss/present
  at Fosdem.

- java.util.regex/gnu.regexp
  Two copyright holders are missing in action :{
  I am currently discussing how to proceed on this with Wes Biggs.
  If you have experience (or want to get experience with) regular
  expressions please let me know.

- Savannah GNU Classpath code checking
  We need to check if someone has tempered with any code when they had
  access to the CVS server. Doing checks against kaffe and libgcj
  sources should help with this.
  See also http://savannah.gnu.org/statement.html

- GNU Classpath task list.
  Sascha has already made a start with one and Patrik has already turned
  them into a nice web page (but since savannah is down, we cannot
  publish it...)
  If Patrik can post the current tasks to the mailinglist then other can
  comment on it and/or add tasks.

Other items on my list are discussing standardization, JCP, JSPA, Apache
RI/TCK licensing issues and looking at US encryption export regulations
to see what is required to better mix and match the standard crypto
(hook) APIs from GNU Crypto/Jessie with GNU Classpath.

As you can see very little coding, reviewing or even testing of code :(
My new year resolution will be: Less talking, More coding!

Let me know if you can help with any of the above things.

Cheers,

Mark

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part