Re: build ideas

[Etienne M. Gagnon]

I remember doing the following suggestion before on this list; you can also
find an implementation of my idea in Sablepath 
(see 
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5523&release_id=52287 )

My suggestion is to use the GNU auto* tools for the native code, and use Ant
for the Java code.

See comment below.
 
On Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 01:51:54PM +0100, Nic Ferrier wrote:
> Personally, I don't like Ant. It's not *free* software either.

I think you are mistaken here.  Ant is indeed free software (BSD like license
with adv. clause), but it is not Copyleft software (GNU GPL).

If you don't want to use non-GPL software, you'll get in trouble: the Jikes
compiler is not GPLed either, and it has a license which is incompatible
with the GPL. (See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html for a
good explanation of all this).

So, I see no reason not to use Ant for the Java stuff.  Yes, it is a Java
centric tool, but this is what you want here.  One could say that the
GNU auto* tools are C/C++ and traditional *NIX languages centric; they are
pretty ill suited for Java (I don't intend to open a debate on this, I am
just stating my *personal* view).

So, please give a look at Sablepath, which is divided into 2 packages:
 sablepath-classes : the Java code, Ant based build
 sablepath-libs : the native code, GNU auto* based build

This would satisfy the various groups using Classpath. Groups that don't
need the native stuff would simply get the *-classes package, people
needing standard JNI native stuff would download the *-lib package,
you could even add different native implementations, like *-cni-lib, etc.

Etienne
-- 
Etienne M. Gagnon                    http://www.info.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM:                                       http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC:                                       http://www.sablecc.org/