Kaffe, Swing, and NetBeans...

Andrew Pimlott kaffe@rufus.w3.org
Wed, 29 Jul 1998 15:27:00 -0400 (EDT)


On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Peter C. Mehlitz wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, James D. McIninch wrote:
> >..for Linux with Swing 1.0.3. Running the application
> >fails with the error:
> >
> >	java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: java/awt/peer/LightweightPeer
> 
> We are working on swing compatibility ( (some)peers, deprecateds and all
> that..) - still some way to go. But to make it public, somebody has to show us
> how to work around the Gif license restrictions (since swing heavily uses Gifs).

In case this was missed the first time around (nobody replied), Debian is 
planning to use a modified libgif called "ungiflib", which they believe 
frees them from any encumbrance.  Here is the description of the package:

 The libungif library is a specially modified version of giflib which
 is free of the Unisys LZW patent.  It can read all GIFs, but only
 write uncompressed GIFs.  If you need to be able to write compressed
 GIFs, you can install the non-free giflib packages instead (which may
 not be available on CD).

The source package is in 
ftp://ftp.debian.org/pub/debian/dists/unstable/main/source/graphics

Andrew