Classpath Meeting Minutes (2005-10-07)

[Robert Schuster]

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GNU Classpath Meeting Minutes from 2005-10-07 17:00 UTC

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"No fireworks. Just smiling happy hackers wondering when they could get back to
business and add some new code..."
 -- Mark Wielaard about the meeting

This evening at 17:00 UTC GNU Classpath held its first official meeting!

It was suggested by Mark because he thought that a little bit of (real-time)
coordination would be nice due to the development taking place at such a high
pace these times.

The following agenda was adopted:

- Intro/Why a meeting?
- Next release (when/what)
- Testing setup?
- Anyone blocked on something?
- Random thoughts.

No further topics have been suggested.

Intro/Why a meeting?
--------------------
Basically, Mark explained, he could not believe that everything is going on
smoothly. He studied Apache's procedures and asked the attendents whether these
would be useful for Classpath, too.

However everybody seemed happy with the way it is and Mark was a surprized that
people seem so happy to hack on GNU Classpath while the project has no real
formal structure.

Next release:
-------------

No change is being done to the current bi-monthly release schedule. The next
snapshot release will be in November 2005.

Mark was worried about introducing dependencies on Gtk+-2.8 and Cairo-1.0.0 .
These would be a necessity of the AWT rework[0]. Sven added that he does not
expect these changes before 0.19 .

Unfortunately Thomas was not present to discuss the item so we remained at
postponing any major AWT rework to a time after the November release.

------------
Intermission
------------

Before we advanced to the next topic everyone thanked Audrius for his truly
amazing work on the CORBA implementation.

Testing setup?
--------------

Before each and every release Mark does a lot of manual Mauve runs and wondered
why this could not be automated. Tom already has some basics for an automated
test environment but needs a destination for result notifications. Mark's
proposal to create a new mailing list called 'classpath-testresults' was
accepted immediately.

Having developer.classpath.org and a new box set up by Jim Pick would provide
enough resources for an automated Mauve and GUMP run. The latter is already
running on one of Apache's machines with Kaffe. Mark reminded himself to ask Leo
about sending results to the new testresult mailing list.

A short discussion about which testresults should be on the list concluded with
the idea to not filter anything in the beginning and refine the involved scripts
over time.

Additionally Tom's script will be published at some point making it possible for
everyone to run fully automated tests.


Anyone blocked on something?
----------------------------

Integration of GNU Crypto was mentioned and that we have to wait for Casey's
rewrite of it. Mark stated that Casey would be the only one being able to do the
integration nicely.

Random thoughts
---------------

Mark wanted that people go through the bug list from time to time and clean it 
up.

David pleaded for more Mauve tests.

Which brought Sven to the idea to ask for more quality control on the tests as
he had some problems with broken tests before. He reminds to be extra wary if
any test fails on the JDK. Some of them may be correct but sometimes it would be
a bit easy to jump to the conclusion that the JDK is wrong, when it is actually
ambiguity in the spec.
(If the spec is ambiguous, then whatever the JDK does has to be viewed as
'correct').

Mark liked the idea of the FreeSwingApplications page[1] which Robert set up. He
hoped to see more lists of free software applications (running on GNU 
Classpath).

James Damour, one of MegaMek's[2] project maintainers and advocate of GNU
Classpath, suggested to contact the projects listed on the FreeSwingApplications
page to let them know that we are working on getting their programs to run.
@James: It would be nice if the authors could add some information about the
kind of Swing components they use.

Finally James is "hoping that there will be more volunteers to help!"

As this came up after the meeting: If you wonder whether you are tainted or not.
The ClasspathFirstSteps page[3] has the appropriate information. Nevertheless
having seen parts of the core library does not hinder you from writing (and/or
maintaining) Mauve[4] test cases or Classpath demo applications.

That was it - Everybody seemed to have enjoyed the meeting. In fact people we in
such a good mood that nobody asked for the date of the next meeting. Perhaps
this will be solved on the main discussion mailing list.

cu
Robert

[0] - http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/ClasspathGraphicsImagesText
[1] - http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/FreeSwingTestApps
[2] - http://megamek.sf.net
[3] - http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/ClasspathFirstSteps
[4] - http://sources.redhat.com/mauve/