[kaffe] Re: KJC bug preventing Ant 1.6.0 bootstrap

[Thomas Graf]

Dear Dalibor,

On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 12:09, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> Hi Ito, salut Guilhem,
> 
> I've tried to update kaffe-extras to 1.1.3 and ant 1.6.0, and after 
> spending some time revisiting the ant bootstrap script, I failed due to 
> what seems to be a compiler bug in kjc.
We were not able to reproduce this error with the current CVS version of
KJC; the version of KJC dated April 20, 2002 from the Kaffe CVS tree
(libraries/javalib/kjc.jar) compiles the test program provided by
Guilhem on this mailing list without error; however the current version
of KJC in the Kaffe CVS tree fails: it appears that one of the patches
and workarounds added to the Kaffe version of KJC causes this error.


> It's sad that apparently the kjc developers prefer to be silent when 
> they receive bug reports, so I guess the burden on maintaining kjc in a 
> useable shape falls on kaffe developers.
You may or may not wish to modify the tone of your remarks, but in the
meantime I feel somewhat obliged to express my right of reply to your
previous statement...

Please bear in mind that we are a commercial organisation. The bottom
line is that while we are wholly committed to the advancement of Free
Software, we are still bound by commercial necessity.

This does admittedly mean that we cannot always enter into
correspondence regarding every bug brought to our attention, and I
apologise for this, but we are always grateful for all input we receive.

Whenever a bug report finds its way to one of our mailing lists, we
study it and try to fix the compiler, depending on the following
factors:
- time (and therefore money) we can spend to work on our non-commercial
projects;
- the impact of the change on our other systems.

We must also bear in mind that KJC is released as free software, giving
you the "freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs", and the "freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits".

As you might know, KJC is only a small but central part of the Kopi
suite, a collection of software tools that allows the development of
business oriented systems (such as ERPs). Kopi consists of:
- a compiler and runtime libraries to enable "Design by Contract" in
Java (assertions, pre- and post-conditions),
- a compiler and runtime libraries to enable operator overloading in
Java,
- a compiler and runtime libraries to integrate SQL queries seamlessly
into Java,
- form and report generators with triggers written in (extended) Java,
generating pure Java classes with a Swing GUI.
All these tools are distributed as free software under GPL (or LPGL
where appropriate).

We are currently working on a tool which allows to translate
Oracle*Forms, Oracle*Reports and PL/SQL files automatically to Kopi
(extended Java). This tools is expected to be fully operational by the
end of Q1 2004.

Every compiler of the Kopi suite extend KJC; thus every change to the
Java compiler potentially affects (breaks) each of these systems, which
are vital for our business.

Thank you for reading,

Thomas