On Sun, 2005-05-15 at 22:34 +0200, Mladen Turk wrote: > Well, I agree that no man is an island. This would be fine if > the Harmony is going to be the JVM project, rather then J2SE project. > > If it will depend for it's core functionality on the code released > by non-ASF license without giving options to use something else, then > it might be perceived as 'just a JVM for GNU Classpath'. > OTOH if it will provide an API for using various classpath > like libraries without providing its own, then it will still > be just an JVM.
As far as I can tell, Harmony is a project for creating a J2SE implementation under the Apache (or compatible) license. Whether that means building everything from scratch, just the VM, or neither hasn't been decided. Yes, you might be percived as 'just a JVM for GNU Classpath'. That's not likely though. Apache has created quite a buzz with Harmony. Anyway, what is the alternative then? A lot of people already consider FOSS JVMs as entirely redundant. 'Just a crappier version of java'. Unless Harmony manages to be phenomenally successful compared to GNU Classpath in attracting class-library devs, and manages to catch up with years of effort by the first release, you're risking being percived as a crappier version of that, even. You might also be percived as splintering the free java community. Now I'm not the one to say what Apache or Harmony wants. I'm just trying to give advice here. Work with the existing community. Use our code. Help us both achive our goals. Learn from our mistakes. One of those mistakes was underestimating the work that goes into building a full java class library. GCJ and Kaffe had their own class libraries once too, you know. > Perhaps I'm totally wrong and just bringing white noise, but IMHO the > classpath is essential part of any J2SE wannabe project. I agree it is an essential part. That doesn't seem to be a good argument for why it can't be an external part though. As was pointed out, there are plenty of Apache projects with external dependencies. /Sven
