Re: [Savannah-hackers] Is there a limitation on the project type?

[Patrick Ohnewein]

>         What you use to develop is of no consequence to anyone, except
> for yourself. When distributing the Free Software you produce, it is
> of great consequence to everyone if it can only be run using non free
> software.

Yes, that's my question. Is it acceptable if the Java program just runs 
under the SUN VM, which for what I know isn't free software. Or has it 
to run at least under one free VM?


>         Now, your question is probably : would java byte code
> generated by the sun jdk run on kaffe ? That I cannot say, maybe Nic
> can give you an answer.

Here I suspect I will not get running everything, I've read on there 
side they support Java 1.1, which is fairly old. Probably there isn't a 
swing available in kaffe, which is a big issue to applications with 
graphical user interface.

Of course I have first to run some tests to be sure, these are just 
speculations.


If it is possible for us to write a Java program, using SUNs VM and SUNs 
or IBMs compiler, it means we can open the project and even further 
projects. If we have to write the Java program to run under at least one 
free VM, I guess we will have some problems, because it seams the best 
free VM is kaffe and we suspect it not to be enough for our needs (I 
think about other bigger projects, not the chess prog). You probably 
could answer me now, that kaffe is free software, that I could get the 
source and extend it, but I don't know if I have the skills to do that.

So resume:
Can a java program, which *requires* SUNs VM, be free software?

Best regards

Patrick


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