Seems to be about licensing (???)

Seems to be about licensing (???)

Posted May 9, 2005 15:37 UTC (Mon) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559)
Parent article: A proposal for a free Java implementation

From a quick read (correct me if I am wrong), the primary underlying motivator here is licensing. As far as I know, there are no major technical issues or problems with Classpath, so to reimplement this work implies someone with a serious itch to scratch reinventing a huge pile of code, or a gripe with licensing. I am mentioning Classpath specifically because that seems to be the meat of this project - it has been demonstrated by numerous parties that a somewhat-competent VM can be created in about a year or so. The Classpath work is a multi-year project, with some very tedious testing added on to ensure compatibility with the Sun J2SE.

I understand that the current free implementations (gcj/gij, kaffe, sable etc) do not support Java 1.5 features (parameterized types etc) but to me this doesn't seem like a call to recreate a Java-compatible environment from scratch.

This will be a massive project to be sure, I wish them luck...but its going to be years until we see something we can download and use if the messaging is correct - that they have no existing code they are working with. Look at the Perl 6 project...which has been going on since what, 2001? Four years later they are focusing on a hacked-up environment based on Haskell. While everyone has been recreating the universe from scratch (the "big rewrite" fallacy engaged fully), Python has been chugging along with a sound design, and no issues with a corporation granting/killing/suing rights and privileges (see, Mono, Java). Maybe thats why I see more people adopting Python everyday - its a known quantity with a known feedback loop and a known licensing/IP approach.

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