Re: State of AWT

[Chris Gray]

Tom Tromey wrote:

> >>>>> "Yann" == Yann Secq <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Yann> Hi, there has been some talk around the wonka-vm, but I didn't
> Yann> understand were it leads. I've checked their webpages and it is
> Yann> explicitely written that their licence is GPL compatible
> Yann> (http://wonka.acunia.com/licence.html).
>

Currently out GPL compatibility is ``self-certified'', i.e. we sincerely
believe that the WPL is compatible with the GPL but we don't actually
have a signed statement from RMS.  Maybe when address@hidden
reply to my mail of 12 Dec (nd reminder of 21 Jan) ...

The WPL (http://wonka.acunia.com/licence.html) does not impose
any conditions which are not also imposed by the BSD license,
from which I syllogistically conclude that it is compatible with the
GPL.


> Yann> Isn't it possible to merge their implementation of AWT with
> Yann> Classpath ?
>
> Yes, it just requires the will and the time to do so.  My
> understanding is that Rudolph (isn't that the name of the Wonka AWT
> implementation?) is a peerless implementation running on a framebuffer
> abstraction.  So parts wouldn't be really applicable -- though ideally
> Classpath could run on framebuffers too, my primary goal is to make it
> work on desktop boxes.

We've also looked at this from the reverse direction, i.e. could we make
a version of Rudolph to run on nanoX or Qt or whatever, for devices
(such as the Sharp Zaurus) which already have such a graphics library?
Initial conclusion is [an oxymoron...] that going from peerless to
peerful
is a big change

> Do they have GridBagLayout?  That would be one area where we could
> easily benefit.  I don't know about anybody else, but I'd be willing
> to feed bug fixes I write upstream to them.

Yes, we have GridBagLayout. 8->  (if you run the VisualTestEngine
you'll see eight tests for GridBagLayout).

Regards

Chris Gray
VM Architect, ACUNIA