ANN: Initial release of the JanosVM

[Patrick Tullmann]

[ Please watch your CC list when replying -pat ]


		      Janos Virtual Machine v0.5.0
		      ----------------------------

The University of Utah's Flux Research Group announces the initial
release of the JanosVM, v0.5.0.

The Janos Virtual Machine (JanosVM) is an Open Source virtual machine
for executing Java bytecodes.  Unlike any available virtual machine,
the JanosVM supports multiple, separate process-like entities (called
"teams" in the JanosVM) within a single VM, without reliance on any
underlying OS or hardware support for such separation.  The JanosVM
supports separate per-team heaps, per-team garbage collection threads,
inter-team thread migration, safe cross-team reference objects, and a
spiffy tutorial.  Designed to support asynchronous termination of
buggy, uncooperative, or malicious Java bytecode applications, the
JanosVM provides robust and scalable multi-process support within a
single virtual machine.

The JanosVM exposes the primitives needed to build a multi-process
JVM, allowing users of the JanosVM to build their own Java-oriented
operating systems.  The JanosVM does not provide a complete
environment for running untrusted user code.  Rather, it provides
clean and efficient building blocks for building robust Java-based
operating systems.  For example, when combined with the custom
runtimes available on our site, the JanosVM provides an environment
for safely executing untrusted Java code in an active network.

The JanosVM is useful without any of the other Janos components.
Custom runtimes could meet the needs of embedded systems, PDAs,
servlet environments, or peer-to-peer and mobile agent platforms.

The JanosVM provides a wealth of novel infrastructure for building a
Java-oriented operating system including: a flexible and extensible
framework for associating and managing per-team resources; simple yet
powerful mechanisms for sharing data and types between teams;
cross-language profiling of both C and Java code; an extensible tool
for remotely controlling the JanosVM; and complete source for the
system.

The JanosVM is GPL'ed free software and was derived from the KaffeOS
Java operating system [1].  KaffeOS, in turn, is based on Kaffe, a
free and portable Java virtual machine [2].

Download documentation, papers, and the latest version at:
	http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/janos/

Please send bugs, questions, or comments to:
	janos-discuss at flux.cs.utah.edu

[1] KaffeOS: http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/papers/kaffeos-osdi00-base.html
[2] Kaffe: http://www.kaffe.org/

* Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
* Kaffe is a registered trademark of Transvirtual Technologies, Inc.