[kaffe] Other question

Matt R. Jezorek matt@bluelinux.org
Mon Jul 28 10:07:01 2003


I will look into a few things and see what I can do. One way I might approach 
this is install kaffe as default and then put a sun jre package on the update 
server to let people get it who want it. Let me think about it a bit and see 
what I can think about and come up with. I might can help here and there :)
On Monday 28 July 2003 12:37 pm, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> Hi Matt,
>
> Matt R. Jezorek wrote:
> > Well thank you now it builds great. So I got one other question. How
> > production ready would you say kaffe is. The reason I ask is
> >
> > We are developing a Linux based distro for educational use. We will be
> > including java which is why i am testing kaffe as it is a open project
> > which we love to include instead of Sun's. Most will be used manly as a
> > plugin to the browser and Open Office.  So looking to include it in the
> > distro.
> >
> > Let me know if you think its ready for prime-time.
>
> Uh, depends on what 'prime-time' means ;)
>
> I'm talking with OpenOffice developers about what they need exactly in
> terms of kaffe features to build OpenOffice. Running OOo's bits written
> in Java may or may not work, I don't think anyone has tried it yet.
> Though judging by their import statements, it seems that OOo first needs
> a good cleanup, since it appears to be using a lot of Sun's internal
> classes. How much of an impact that has I can't really say. If you want
> to build OpenOffice using kaffe, join the discussion on the developer
> mailing list on tools.openoffice.org.
>
> There is a mozilla plugin for kaffe, but it hasn't been merged into the
> main tree due to lack of a developer who can fix it to work with mozilla
> latest xpcom incarnation. The sources, if you intend to work on it, are
> here: ftp://ftp.kaffe.org/pub/packages/kaffe-mozilla-oji [1]
>
> One of the big prime time issues is that there is no swing. Kaffe works
> with Sun's swing 1.1.1, but it's a separate download under an awkward
> license. So you may find yourself with your users wanting to run
> LimeWire and replacing kaffe with Sun's JDK.
>
> To sum it up: if you know what you need, and kaffe fits the need, go for
> it. It includes some useful bits from 1.4, 1.3 and 1.2 and almost a full
> implementation of 1.1.
>
> But as a full scale replacement for the 1.4 JDK, it's not there yet. As
> a full scale replacement for JDK 1.2 neither. It should be O.K. for 1.1
> applications, if you still run some ;) And it's quite alright for many
> applications that don't need the more esoteric features of 1.4, like XML
> processing applications.
>
> Of course, if you decide to use kaffe, we'd appreciate your bug reports
> and patches. You may even get rapid responses to bug reports, like today ;)
>
> Writing a java runtime is a huge task, and we can use all the help we
> can get. Experimental distributors are welcome to join in the fun ;)
>
> cheers,
> dalibor topic
>
> [1] Speaking of mozilla: I've heard that Michael Koch is working on a
> mozila plugin for gcj.