Introduction, new maintainer for kaffe

[Glenn R. Williams]

Jim,

I'd like to wish you good luck in your new role. Many a time I have
checked the kaffe.org site for another release, only to be disappointed.
I really feel the need for a SMALL cleanroom implementation, and am glad 
the project is going again! Although not a Java programmer, I might just
become one!

Cheers and good luck!

Glenn

Jim Pick <jim at kaffe.org> wrote:

>
>Hi,
>
>I'd like to introduce myself.  My name is Jim Pick.
>
>I have volunteered to take over the reigns of the kaffe project from
>it's original author, Tim Wilkinson.
>
>I've been following Kaffe's progress since about the time I first got
>involved in free software (around 1996).  In the past, I've been an
>active Debian maintainer, and I also ran LinuxHQ.com, KernelNotes.org,
>and Kernel.org for a while, amongst other things.
>
>I know Tim quite well, as I moved to Berkeley, California (from
>Canada) to work with him and Peter Mehlitz at Transvirtual about two
>years ago.  Tim is currently involved in the process of starting a new
>company, having left Transvirtual at the end of November last year.  I
>still work at Transvirtual though, and I'm still good friends with Tim
>(we usually meet for coffee in the mornings).  It was during one of
>those morning coffees that I asked Tim what was happening with
>Kaffe.org, and whether or not he was planning to do any more work on
>it.
>
>As I suspected, he stated that he really doesn't have time to do
>anymore work on it (especially since he no longer works at
>Transvirtual).  He stated that he'd be happy if I took it over.  I
>also checked with the new CEO of Transvirtual, Chris Herron, and Peter
>Mehlitz, if it was OK with them if I did some work to try to get the
>Kaffe.org project moving again, and they thought it was a good idea
>and were very supportive.
>
>I've announced my intentions to the core team, and they all seemed OK
>with the idea -- I asked if anybody else wanted the job, but there
>were no takers.  So I guess I've got the go ahead to do this.  :-)
>
>I've also taken over development of Transvirtual's internal,
>proprietary version of Kaffe (now called KaffePro), so I'm in the
>situation where I can spend a lot of time thinking about JVM
>implementations.  :-)
>
>Anyways, here's what I'm planning to do:
>
>1) Setup a new machine and website for kaffe.org, so everything can be
>   centralized on one site.
>
>   Transvirtual has donated a machine and rackspace for it, and I've
>   already set it up.  I've already moved the DNS and the ftp site
>   onto it.  The current website is looking pretty old and
>   out-of-date, so I'm going to replace it with something simpler.
>
>   I'm hoping I can get the CVS archive from Ean Schuessler at
>   Brainfood so I can set it up on the new machine.  Also, down the
>   road, it would be nice to migrate the mailing list to the new
>   machine so Daniel Veillard doesn't have to maintain it.
>
>   I thought about using SourceForge, but I decided against it.
>
>2) Make a new release as soon as possible.
>
>   Version 1.0.6 came out in July, 2000, and there hasn't been a
>   release since (although there has been CVS activity).  I'd like to
>   do a minimal amount of testing, and see if we can get it out,
>   perhaps as early as next week.
>
>3) Clarify the relationship between Transvirtual and Kaffe.org.
>
>   As a long-time kaffe-watcher, I would like to see Kaffe.org be a
>   very open project, which incorporates code from, and interoperates
>   with all the other free virtual machine projects out there.  I
>   definitely see Kaffe.org as being an independent project that isn't
>   controlled by Transvirtual.
>
>   Transvirtual is willing to donate time and code to the project to
>   make it successful.  On the other hand, it would be best if
>   everybody was comfortable with the fact that my employer is
>   actively developing a proprietary version of kaffe, called
>   KaffePro, which is designed to address the needs of the commercial
>   market for clean room Java virtual machine implementations.
>
>   As a commercial software company built on developing Intellectual
>   Property, Transvirtual needs to be selective about what it does
>   and does not contribute to the project.  You can expect that
>   Transvirtual won't hold back bug fixes from the free version, and
>   will not prevent others from contributing to the project.
>
>   Transvirtual, as a company, was founded with Kaffe as it's primary
>   product, so you can expect to see Transvirtual continue to use,
>   maintain and protect the Kaffe trademark for it's own purposes.
>   It is important to Transvirtual that Kaffe.org is successful, but
>   also that it is clear to the public that Kaffe.org's JVM
>   implementation is separate from Transvirtual's KaffePro product,
>   even though they share a common heritage.
>
>   (whew, glad that's over, I'm afraid I was starting to sound like a
>   lawyer)
>
>4) Start active development on a new major release of kaffe.
>
>   I've got a lot of ideas for what should be done with it.  But I'll
>   discuss those separately because I'd like to see some contributions
>   and some debate.  :-)
>
>Anyways, this email has been long enough.  I'm looking forward to
>working on kaffe and Kaffe.org - it should be fun!
>
>Cheers,
>
> - Jim
>
>p.s. If you're reading this, and you're going to JavaOne this year in 
>     San Francisco, let's get together for beers.  :-)
>
-- 
Glenn R. Williams
Director, Special Projects



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