Re: Linux Kongress 2003 in Saarbruecken, Germany

[Sascha Brawer]

Mark Wielaard <address@hidden> wrote on Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:58:32 +0200:

> [GNU Coding Standards: Trademarks]

Thanks for pointing this out.


>You should also mention that some dedicated people have been working on
>GNU Classpath for the last five years. That explains why we are as far
>as we are now. Consistently doing little steps for a couple of years
>does work to make progress.

Definitely. I really don't want to pretend that other people's hard work
would be mine.


>> Would anyone be interested in doing the talk together?
>I can certainly act as the lovely assistant who does the demos :)

You'd also be more than welcome to say something, of course. Talks are 40
minutes, including discussion. How long do you think that the demos will
take, 10 minutes maybe? --- Actually, this topic might not be that
interesting for everyone on the list. Is it OK to move this thread off-list?

>[...]
>And from the meeting in Karlsruhe I got the impression that people would
>be interested in some common (native) library format to reuse the output
>of a ahead of time or just in time compiler. (BTW found the paper that I
>mentioned: http://flint.cs.yale.edu/flint/publications/bincomp.html)

Thanks for the interesting reference.

When it comes to sharing VM internals, I'd be mostly interested about
some common compiler infrastructure written in Java, such as a framework
for an Intermediate Representation.  But I guess it would be very hard to
come to an agreemant about how to do it correctly. It might be easier for
other parts, such as assemblers.

Another non-library part I'd be interested in sharing is device drivers
for pure Java OSes/embedded systems, or even just common interfaces to those.


>> GNU Classpath -- Freedom for Java [FIXME: Is the title too snappy?]
>"Freedom to Innovate" :)

Yes, let's do it without buzzwords. What about "GNU Classpath --
Motivation, current state, missing parts"?


>Seriously. I think GNU Classpath is the boring project. It is what it
>enables people do with it that makes it so exciting!

I fully agree, there's very little room for creativity here (I hope
saying so does not offend anyone).  I guess we all have our truly
exciting projects which just need this boring library.  But, who works on
Classpath unless we do it ourselves?


>[some reasons why Classpath is meaningful]

Yes, this huge framework seems indeed like a reasonable foundation for
building free applications that go beyond a certain base level. Which
cross-platform alternatives are there, anyway? GNUStep, possibly. Also,
the .NET library seems quite nice, but I must admit that I did not look
at it very closely. There are some platform-specifc frameworks (like MFC,
MacApp, PowerPlant).

Of course, someone could try to establish a new framework. This would
have the big advantage that it would be "us" (the free software people)
who is setting the standard, so we wouldn't always lag behind. But one
would also have to convince each potential developer that they are not on
a risky path.

Best,

-- Sascha

Sascha Brawer, address@hidden, http://www.dandelis.ch/people/brawer/