Re: What are tainted developers allowed to work on?

[Dalibor Topic]

Mark Wielaard wrote:

> > Nevertheless he is eager to help making Free Java a reality.
>
>
> (Sidenote: we are not doing "Free Java", we are doing GNU Classpath, we
> do not claim to be (free) Java (tm), although we hope we are compatible
> with java so that people can easily move from a proprietary platform to
> a free platform. Dalibor is working with Sun on getting kaffe to be
> called Java, but that will be a long way off. If Sun helps out it might
> be appropriate to claim we are doing Java, but currently we cannot even
> claim to be compatible with it. [But Mauve and the Gump effort are a big
> help here.])

Almost correct ;) Kaffe doesn't claim to be Java either [1], nor would I 
care about it getting called that way. I prefer to stay away from other 
people's trade marks, as trade marks are a legal mess, afaict. On top of 
that Kaffe is a much nicer name than Java ;)

Here's what's really happening: I'm preparing a 'qualified individual' 
application for a TCK scholarship for the J2SE 1.5 TCK for a 
Kaffe/classpath/... stack[2], in order to get unencumbered, non-tainting 
access to Sun's test suite. If and when that happens, and the terms of 
such access are clear and sound, I'll make sure to let people know. So 
far I was mostly busy with getting sick, and catching up with Kaffe 
development, rather then pushing in this direction, unfortunately ...

I hope that if I get TCK access, I'll be able to set a project up on 
java.net to deal with the actual testing and all that, but how it all 
works out really depends on the actual terms of the TCK scholarship, 
that will likely have to be negotiated first. The projects that were 
granted a TCK scholarship that I talked to have all had to deal with 
rather weird NDAs and similar bizarrities that are apparently part of 
normal dealings with corporations. So don't put up your hopes too high 
for non-discriminatory TCK access within our time. Nevertheless, there 
is value in trying.

For me, the value of getting TCK access is two-fold: it would allow me 
(and others, if things work out well) to evaluate and improve 
compatiblity of Classpath wrt to Sun's interpretation of the 
specifications, and it's a political move to encourage Sun to cooperate.

I personally believe that free runtimes will be as successful as gcc and 
linux with or without Sun's assistance, anyway. They already are going 
that way with high steam. But it would be nice to be as compatible with 
Sun's implementation as possible for the sake of being able to run more 
code compiled to Java bytecode that depends on pecularities of Sun's 
implementation.

For that, TCK access would come in handy. On the other hand, that is not 
such a huge concern for free software written in Java, as that can be 
fixed to adhere to the specs, rather then to run on Sun's VM only. It 
just takes a bit of work to improve the quality of such software. 
OpenOffice.org could use a bit of help there, for example.

I think tainted developers could help a lot by helping fix free software 
applications like OOo that are still tied to Sun's VM. Severing ties of 
applciations that make them depend on non-free runtimes helps grow the 
niche for free runtimes. And it usually improves code quality and 
robustness, too ;)

Mauve is very valuable as a free, unencumbered test suite that everyone, 
including Sun, can access und use to assess the quality of their 
implementation of class libraries. Gump is wonderful as well, as it lets 
us find bugs in free runtimes and Classpath that prevent other free 
software from running on them ... which means we can fix problems 
without going through the legal mess that seems to be the rule when 
dealing with non-free software.

Part of that non-free software legal mess are trade marks, which is why 
I prefer not to use the term "Free Java" or similar idioms. I'd rather 
see Kaffe (and other free software runtimes) being referred to as free 
runtimes, to avoid the connotations that go with the term 'JVM' or 'Java'.

cheers,
dalibor topic

[1] Kaffe's web site is very explicit about telling you where to go and 
get Java(TM) if that's what you want.
[2] Well, whatever is merged in into Kaffe to complement Classpath. 
Currently the list is getting smaller again, after some projects have 
been merged into Classpath, which is great. Less upstreams to follow ;)