On May 17, 2005, at 8:06 AM, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
Hi,
From informal chat in IRC, Davanum Srinivas (dims) said that each
committer (not contributor) will sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) with Sun to be able to use Sun's TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit), which is required for Harmony to be certified as Java.
Yes
He also said that each contributor (not committer) will be able to test their patches against Harmony's own test cases and against mauve.
Right - we should use Mauve, and help continue to develop and "flesh out" Mauve.
This would mean, I think, that Harmony/mauve would duplicate Sun's TCK.
Maybe. The TCK is available under very restrictive licensing, and *must* be licensed and passed to be considered "Java". I'm fine with that.
OTOH, we want people who don't want to get involved with the TCK to be able to ensure that their fixes/patches/enhancements don't break things, and they can use Mauve to be sure (and others can double- check w/t he TCK)
First of all, it seems undesirable to duplicate Sun's TCK, and it seems difficult to make sure that this is legal.
Nope - anyone can create any kind of test suite they want. Just don't call it the TCK, and just don't claim that anything that passes said test suite is "Java" or "J2SE" or compatible.
If all the Harmony committers sign a Sun NDA, will that mean that any test cases they write for Harmony or mauve will be suspect, on IP (Intellectual Property) grounds?
Well, this is the same problem we have w/ people exposed to the various distributions of src that is out there. Further, Sun distributes the TCK under the JRL, which tries to be clear in saying that unassisted memory is ok to work from. That doesn't prevent copyright or patent violation, but you have that problem anyway.
Perhaps it would be better if at least one Harmony committer didn't sign the Sun NDA, then they wouldn't have anything to disclose.
or more :)
Further, it seems undesirable that a normal contributer (not committer) shouldn't be able to test their patches against the TCK, which is what you'd expect the committers to do before committing.
Well, we'd like to come up w/ a mechanical process that keeps a firewall between non-signers, and the TCK, yet still providing useful information to the community for purposes of development.
Would it be possible/advisable to provide an interface to the TCK that a normal developer could use, without the Sun NDA (which I haven't read) being breached, e.g., a web page. Even if that was legal, technically it would be damn hard, because of security considerations, etc. Part of the 'etc' would be time; can part of the TCK be run, rather than the whole thing? I'd imagine the answer would be yes, but the method to do it might be laborious.
Well, no - you could imagine a CI system where on checkin, a binary is created and a test run started... failure would be communicated in some clean way. The work will be in the details, of course.
Is the Sun NDA publically available, or is it subject to the Sun NDA? ;)
There is no Sun NDA here - this is an NDA w/ Apache, as Apache is the licensor of such materials. This keeps people out of any relationship with Sun - and only w/ Apache.
Is the TCK's own licence under review at all, i.e., will it ever become free?
You'll have to ask Sun.
While we're on a testing thread, what will Harmony's own test suite/cases use/look like?
Hopfully robust and complete :)
geir
-- Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
