Re: CORBA

[Dalibor Topic]

Stephen Crawley wrote:
> Dalibor,
>
> You should be arguing with the OMG, not with me.  On second thoughts,
> that would be a mistake.  The typical OMG representative is likely to
> dismiss the kind of arguments you just made as idealistic claptrap.
> If you want corporate types to listen to you, you have to talk their
> language.

Thanks, Stephen! I'm sorry if it came accross that way, my intent was 
not to argue with you, or to in any way dismiss your experience from 
work with and within the OMG. Nor do I intend to shadow-box with the 
non-present OMG :)

> Re: the clean-room and copyright issues, it is not just an issue of
> what you or I think is reasonable.  If there is even a POSSIBILITY
> that a reimplementation of the org.omg interfaces might be raise the
> ire of the OMG, then we need to be VERY CAUTIOUS.  At least clear it
> with FSF legal. 

Yeah. I was under the impression that FSF's legal had already been 
consulted on it and gave a green light, as Jeff said

'The FSF has said that we can safely use those PDF files.'

in  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/classpath/2005-01/msg00198.html

Maybe Jeff can give some details.

> > Classpath doesn't do badges yet :)
>
>
> "Yet" being the operative word, I think.  If we are serious about
> helping people break out of the Sun trap, we are going to have to
> find a way to get a "badge" for Classpath from Sun.  If customers
> cannot see proof (in the form of a "badge") that a Classpath-based 
> VM passes the Sun JCK, they could just be exchanging one trap for 
> another one by switching VMs.

In my opinion, it's really up to customers that want such proof to do 
whatever it takes to obtain it, and not to the FSF, in general. While 
I've started the TCK dance with Sun as a 'qualified individual', I'm not 
doing it because of some hypothetical customers I don't have:), I'm 
doing it because I think it would pretty useful to get access to Sun's 
interpretation of the specifications, in order to work on mutual 
compatibility, and fix whatever the remaining issues are. I don't care 
about a cute badge from Sun, I care about interoperability between free 
and non-free implementations, as both are here to stay for a while, so 
they should agree on some things. :)

Badges are defintely useful when you're distributing non-free software. 
Then a badge is a way to assure recepients that something they receive 
may actually do what it is advertised to do, according to the 
reliability of the badge it wears.

A badge is not important for free software, though, as the recepient can 
always peer under the hood and see if the software does what it claims 
to do. In particular if the software comes with its own extensive free 
software test suites, like mauve, jacks and all that.

> > More poetically spoken, as GNU Classpath is in the trap-smashing 
> > business, it would be a bit self-refuting to exchange the shackles of 
> > the Java trap for the shackles of the CORBA trap, if there is such a 
> > trap. :)
>
>
> ... which suggests yet another option:
>
> 5) avoid the CORBA trap by removing all CORBA support from Classpath.
> Retain our idealogical purity, and let the J2EE crowd be damned to
> the hell of proprietary JVMs.  SEP.

Well, yeah. :) If the OMG actually would threaten legal action against 
independent, clean-room implementations of the IDLtoJava spec, then it 
would be reasonable to stay away from them and that technology until 
they fix that bug.

While that would leave the J2EE crowd hanging, it's a trap of their own 
choice. Non-free software users can't rely in general on someone coming 
along and rescuing them from their chosen trap, and sometimes it can 
take a while. The VisualBasic crowd is still damned to the hell of 
proprietary whatever it is VisualBasic runs on as far as I know, poor 
chaps :)

> For the record, I actually agree with most of what you are saying ...
> wearing my idealist hat.  But if the aim is to find a practical solution
> to this problem, we are going to have to compromise somewhere.  If that
> entails "kowtowing" to somebody, then maybe we need to be prepared to
> get our collective foreheads down into the dirt!!

I personally don't think a GNU project should make a compromise on the 
four freedoms, wearing my idealist hat. Wearing my pragmatical hat, I'd 
say that those that desperately need a non-free org.omg implementation 
know where to get it, so there is no presing need to accept the 
bizarrities of the license of some non-free implementation as given.

Instead, talking to the copyright holder of the non-free implementation 
to fix their license, or implementing a free one from scratch have been 
suggested, and the latter is in progress, which is pretty nice, in my 
opinion.

cheers,
dalibor topic