Planning for next release (1.0.7)

[Jim Pick]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gwenole Beauchesne" <gbeauchesne@mandrakesoft.com>
To: <kaffe@rufus.w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 5:18 AM
Subject: Re: Planning for next release (1.0.7)


>
> On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, Dalibor Topic wrote:
>
> > * i64 platform patch from mandrake. Has "cool new feature" written all
> > over it and the developer announced it on the mailing list a couple of
> > months ago.
>
> Talking about that, it would be interesting to have Kaffe's lib directory
> be $(libdir)/kaffe/<Khost_cpu>/ instead of $(libdir)/kaffe/ as it is
> currently the case. That way, the -ia32 feature (to run the ia32 version
> of kaffe) could work out of the box without having the distributor to mess
> with overriding that variable. ;-)

That makes sense, for ia32/ia64, I guess.  I'm not sure about how useful it
is for other platforms.

Personally, I think I'd like to see kaffe, by default, install everything
into a file directory structure that mimics Sun's JRE layout.  That way, it
would be easier to use it as a drop-in replacement for a JRE.

I think I'd prefer to see the default libraries in the regular $(libdir)
spot (wherever that is going to be), and any additional libraries in a
separate subdirectory, for those architectures that need that.  I think
that's basically how gcc handles multilib configurations (eg. -msoft-float).
I'm not sure if it really has any affect on building third-party JNI stuff
(since in most cases, kaffe should handle the linking at run-time, unless
somebody is trying to build things staticly).  I think it would be nice to
stick as close to the way Sun lays things out as possible in order to
minimize surprise.  Since that involves changing what we currently do, I'm
going to leave it for post-1.0.7.

> Random thoughts:
>
> 1) Could someone with an Alpha please try the JIT compiler? It doesn't
> appear to work according to what someone reported to me.

I don't have access to an Alpha either.

Before the release, I'll update the "Ports" page on the website to track all
the different ports, and what's been tested on what.

> 2) Is release date still expected within one week from now? I wonder if it
> wouldn't be better to have some public beta or prerelease snapshot first.
> That way, a wider audience could try it out, I hope.

I'm thinking of doing some work on kaffe over the weekend, mostly just
testing it in various configurations, and then we can tag "Release Candidate
1", make some tarballs, and send out a call for testers.  If I'm happy with
the state of things, I might do it on Monday.

Chheers,

 - Jim