[kaffe] KeyEvent -> JDK 1.4 patch (And longer explanation;)

[Dalibor Topic]

Hi Mark,

--- Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, 2002-10-07 at 22:46, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> > I'd expect RMS to call for a gcj compatible
> release ;)
> 
> I do see the smiley, but I reply anyway to make sure
> that there is no
> miscommunication here. Richard has always asked

No miscommunication, I am very impressed by the work
performed by Tom Tromey, Eric Blake, the ORP hackers,
yourself, and all the other nice people working on
free software java implementations. I just tried to be
funny, thus the smiley.

> people that write free
> software programs in java to make sure that it works
> with one of the
> free implementations. Since Kaffe is a free
> implementation that works
> for most applications it is only natural to point
> people to it.
> In the past he had also expected that Kaffe would be
> the free VM that
> would be used by the GNU project. And when other
> projects were launched
> like GNU Classpath and gcj he has always asked the
> developers to work
> together with the Kaffe developers. This has sadly
> not happened very
> much in the past. But mostly because it is a lot of
> work and there is
> just so little time.
> 
> I still hope to get some work done to make at least
> Kaffe and GNU
> Classpath work together (which should make it easier
> to get kaffe
> working better with gcj compiled native code) but
> this is a lot of work
> and there is much other work to do and so little
> time...

This sums up the problem from my point of view as
well: so much to do, so little time. It has been
repreatedly stated by developers on both projects that
having kaffe work with gcj and/or classpath would be a
good thing, but so far noone has steped up the plate,
as far as I know.

I see two ways to get kaffe to work with classpath:
a) small integration: where we would pick the classes
missing in kaffe from classpath, and would "outsource"
a part of class library development.
b) big integration: getting kaffe to run with the full
implementation from classpath.

I guess we should start with a) and do b) as we find
time. Getting a) done would extend the range of
software that runs on kaffe quite a bit. 

I believe that we can keep the GPL+linking exception
from classpath for files that we import completely
into kaffe, though I am not a lawyer. I guess we'd
have to drop the exception on partially imported
files.

Could you come up with a list of java class
files/packages available in classpath but missing in
kaffe? I'd do my best to get them merged into kaffe's
tree if both parties agree.

best regards,

dalibor topic

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