Steve Blackburn wrote:
However, it is not the either/or situtation you paint above. I think it may make most sense to work on a preexisting donated VM or VMs while *concurrently* developing a new VM core or cores from scratch. This approach has a number of advantages, including maximizing our leverage from existing work, minimizing startup time and accelerating the process of building an existing VM. It also allows us to more fruitfully explore some of the implementation choices (which language to use, ...).
FWIW there is precedent for that process happening at Apache. Tomcat3 was largely donated by Sun and people hacked on that for a while until they understood how a newer shinier servlet container could be built. There was a bit more ruckus involved in this process than was strictly required but the community seems to have got back on track with tomcat5. Hopefully some of the old hat Apache peeps can help minimize the heat during harmonys evolution but this is definetly a good way to proceed IMHO.
The donated VM or VMs (if they araise) may already be at this point. As I have already said, this is a process already underway in the Jikes RVM project.
excellent. -- Cheers,
Peter Donald
"Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely
as success - yours or his." - Franklin P. Jones
