Re: Fosdem discussions (Was: Importing GNU Classpath 0.20)

[Mark Wielaard]

On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 15:49 +0000, David Gilbert wrote:
> I've got a couple of points we could talk about:
> 
> (1)  The GNU Classpath version number
> 
> It's not a big issue, but the "0.20" version number does suggest a 
> not-too-far-along-the-track project to people that aren't familiar with 
> GNU Classpath.   Given the frequent releases that Mark puts out, why not 
> call the next version "GNU Classpath, Release 21"...or use the YYYY.n 
> versioning that some other projects use, and call it "GNU Classpath 
> 2006.2".  It would be better than GNU Classpath 0.21, and I'm sure there 
> are obstacles to using "1.0.0".

I like your suggestions. They are much better than the 0.X we use now
which might come over as if the project isn't mature or featurefull! 

We can also discuss a set of guidelines that will bring us to something
stable, which can be called "1.0". In the past my suggestions have
always included concentrating on just a small subset of packages for
that. Especially because I thought we could do it all. Man, have I been
proven wrong each time :) Every time people or groups popped up adding
more and more package support! Personally I think we should freeze the
current code base and call that 1.0 as soon as we switch over to the
generics-branch, which I think means when there is a gcc release that
includes a gcjx that can be used to compile the generics branch fully.
Lets add this topic to the discussion list!

> (2)  Apache Harmony
> 
> Is there any real harmony left?  In spite of the initial promise, the 
> amount of real collaboration is staggeringly low, as far as I can tell.  
> What do others think?  Are there things that we can work on in 2006?  My 
> suggestion:  let's clean up Mauve for a wider audience, and make it so 
> that the Harmony developers can't resist using and contributing to it.

That is also a very good suggestion. Mauve is getting really nice with a
lot of coverage. The builder.classpath.org regression tester also helps
here catching issues quickly.

I think Archie is still doing nicely with trying to bring some harmony
through jcvm integration. But besides that there has indeed not been the
much anticipated cooperation that we set out to achieve when we started
harmony. It almost looks like there is the current group of diverse free
software projects working together (and discussing some of that on the
harmony list) and some new group that at the moment seems to want to go
at it alone. That isn't so bad, at least we have established that there
are multiple groups wanting and pursuing a free software alternative to
the proprietary java platform. But it is indeed a bit disappointing
after all the effort various people spent on it. Especially because I
think we will reach 1.4 and 1.5 completeness for the language, library
and runtimes this year and it would be nice to celebrate that together
as a joint achievement.

The main progress that has been made is through the GPLv3 draft
http://gplv3.fsf.org/ The FSF has been working really hard on a
successor of the GPL that is compatible with a much wider range of other
Free Software licenses (especially the ASL and EPL). Clearly this
process isn't finished yet, but this first draft has been highly
positive and encouraging. I expect that when GPLv3 is finalized and
adopted early next year we will see a lot more cross-over development
taking place since the obnoxious "legal-divide" has been taken down.

BTW, I do encourage everybody to at least read the first chapter of the
GPLv3 draft rational http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale which explains the
design goals. Another good independent review can be found on LWN
http://lwn.net/Articles/167825/

> (3)  Celebration
> 
> 2005 was a great year for GNU Classpath, let's celebrate!  Maybe 
> something has already been arranged for the Saturday night of FOSDEM 
> 2006, and you're just not telling me... ;-)

You are right! We should have a little party together at Saturday night.
I asked the Fosdem organizers about the sponsor dinner, but that
probably won't happen:

        There most probably won't be a FOSDEM dinner this year because
        of lack of sponsors for it.
        
        We're trying to find some options but I'm afraid chances are
        very, very low that we'll do a "FOSDEM buffet" like past years.

So unless one of the companies contributing to GNU Classpath can contact
the Fosdem organization about sponsorship for the buffet we probably
need to arrange something ourselves. Anyone familiar in Brussels and
knows a great place to have dinner on Saturday night for a bunch of
hackers?

Cheers,

Mark

-- 
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