Casey Marshall wrote:
We have the responsibility, as contributors to a GNU project, to
maintain the project for the GNU system. GNU is sorta-POSIX, as are a
lot of other interesting platforms, and targeting them earns us, as
free software contributors -- not necessarily other groups or companies
that want to use Classpath -- a lot. I see these "native portability
layers" as being counter to that goal, and they especially don't make
sense given that there's no other free implementations for platforms
other than what we are targeting.
An alternative take with similar conclusion: There is a standard
"native portability layer". It is called Posix. There are multiple
implementations of this layer available for MS-Windows. Other platforms
we are likely to support (such as OS-X) already support Posix. I.e.
there is no need for an extra portability layer.
That is not to say we cannot add hooks and conditional compilation in
modest doses to support Windows and other non-Posix platforms. But any
extra indirection that hurts performance on Posix (even trivially),
or anything that makes the code harder to maintain and understand
is generally inappropriate.
--
--Per Bothner
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://per.bothner.com/
