[kaffe] Artistic license request

[Jim Pick]

Reini Urban wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to convert JVM classfiles to run under parrot.
> I do not try interpret or jit the bytecode, I just read the classfiles, 
> convert it offline to our internal representation and compile this then 
> to our optimized bytecode/jit/executable which is register based.
> So I don't need to verify and interpret the class files, just read it.
> 
> A colleague already did that for .NET, so JVM is no big deal.
> 
> The problem I have is that I'd like to use some parts of your 
> sourcecode, just the classreader and some headers with the basic 
> structs, and I want to ask if it's possible to release that under the 
> Artistic license 2.0 for this project.
> Otherwise I would have to rewrite it from scratch, because parrot does 
> not accept the GPL or LGPL alone.
> 
> No big deal, writing the op specs into our format from the vmspec is 
> most of the work, but it would help a bit. Pasting the structs from the 
> vmspec html or pdf is too stupid, and there's a tiny bit of logic also 
> involved.
> 
> My work where I would need it:
> http://svn.perl.org/parrot/branches/cygwin070patches/languages/jvm/pmc/JavaClassFile.pmc
> http://svn.perl.org/parrot/branches/cygwin070patches/languages/jvm/pmc/structures.h
> 
> The License:
> http://svn.perl.org/parrot/trunk/LICENSE
> 
> The files:
> readClass.c readClass.h
> and the sources for readInterfaces, readFields, readMethods and 
> readAttributes and such.
> Those are Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
> Transvirtual Technologies, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> 
> As reference J.Worthington's Dissertation Paper on net2pbc
> http://www.jnthn.net/papers/2006-cam-net2pir-dissertation.pdf
> 
> We can convert about 70% of the .NET mscorlib.dll and the other System 
> libs, for JVM I believe we should reach 80%, because the JVM is a bit 
> simplier than .NET.
> perl6 and all the other parrot langs can use then compiled Java and .NET 
> libs.

It sounds like a very interesting project.

Unfortunately, the Kaffe.org project does not hold the copyright for 
that code, so we wouldn't be able to relicense it.

Transvirtual shut down in 2002.  At that time, the investors took 
control of all of Transvirtual's "Intellectual Property".  Of course, we 
can still use the code, as it was released under the GPL license.

"Twin Communications of America" took control of the assets in 2003 
(according to their website), and they still seem to be around:

   http://www.twincom.net/

Perhaps you can ask them if they'd be OK with relicensing?

Cheers,

  - Jim