libjava/classpath/doc/www.gnu.org/announce/20050226.wml

   1 #!wml --include=..
   2
   3 #use wml::std::page
   4 #use wml::std::lang
   5 #use wml::fmt::isolatin
   6 #use wml::std::case global=upper
   7
   8 <lang:star:slice:>
   9
  10 <set-var last-modified-author="prr">
  11
  12 #include <include/macros.wml>
  13
  14 <header title="GNU Classpath 0.14 Announcement (2005-02-26)">
  15 <pre>
  16 "GNU Classpath delivers core libraries for upcoming GCC and Kaffe releases"
  17
  18 We are pleased to announce a new developer snapshot release of GNU Classpath.
  19
  20 GNU Classpath, essential libraries for java, is a project to create free
  21 core class libraries for use with runtimes, compilers and tools for the
  22 java programming language.
  23
  24 The GNU Classpath developer snapshot releases are not directly aimed at
  25 the end user but are meant to be integrated into larger development
  26 platforms. This 0.14 release snapshot can be seen as the feature complete
  27 base library that will be used in the upcoming GCC 4.0 (gcj) and Kaffe
  28 1.1.5 runtimes, compilers and tools collections.
  29
  30 Developers wanting to have a look at the core library classes provided by
  31 these upcoming releases can take a look at the new GNU Classpath developers
  32 site. http://developer.classpath.org/ provides detailed information
  33 on how to start with helping the GNU Classpath project and gives an
  34 overview of the core class library packages currently provided.
  35 With this release generated documentation is provided through the new
  36 GNU Classpath Tools gjdoc 0.7.x series. A large update of the documentation
  37 generation framework for java source files used by the GNU project.
  38 See http://developer.classpath.org/doc/.
  39
  40 One of the major focusses of the GNU Classpath project is expanding and
  41 using the Mauve test suite for Compatibility, Completeness and Correctness
  42 checking.  Various groups around GNU Classpath collaborate on the free
  43 software Mauve test suite which contains more then 25.000 library tests.
  44 Mauve has various modules for testing core class library implementations,
  45 byte code verifiers, source to byte code and native code compiler tests.
  46 Mauve also contains the Wonka visual test suite and the Jacks Compiler
  47 Killer Suite. This release passes 25442 of the mauve core library tests.
  48
  49 The GNU Classpath developer recently held a conference during Fosdem.
  50 This was a standing room event and provided lot of communication between
  51 the GNU Classpath, Kaffe, GCJ, IKVM, Apache, java-gnome and Cacao hackers
  52 and users. The presentations of this event have been publised and should
  53 give a good overview of the current status and future plans of the project:
  54 http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/events/escape_fosdem05.html
  55
  56 Some highlights of changes in this release (more extensive list below):
  57
  58 ImageIO support through gdkpixbuf, lots of new nio character encoders
  59 and decoders, fully automated class documentation generation, generic
  60 VMStackWalker support for runtimes, lots of bug fixes, optimizations and
  61 new swing support.
  62
  63 Included, but not activated by default in this release is a Graphics2D
  64 implementation based on the Cairo Graphics framework
  65 (http://www.cairographics.org). Enabling this makes programs like
  66 JFreeChart work and JEdit start up on GNU Classpath based runtimes.
  67 To enable this support install the cairo 0.3.0 snapshot, configure
  68 GNU Classpath with --enable-gtk-cairo and make sure the system
  69 property gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.Graphics=Graphics2D is set.
  70
  71 Not yet included is an implementation of Generic collection classes
  72 and classes for other 1.5 language extensions.  Work on this is being
  73 done on a special development branch that will be included in a future
  74 GNU Classpath release when free runtimes, compilers and tools have all
  75 been upgraded to support these new language features.
  76
  77 29 people actively contributed code to this release and made 232 CVS
  78 commits during the last two months of development. diffstat since 0.13:
  79 1189 files changed, 31388 insertions(+), 13744 deletions(-)
  80 More details below.
  81
  82 GNU Classpath 0.14 can be downloaded from
  83 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/classpath/
  84 or one of the ftp.gnu.org mirrors
  85 http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html
  86
  87 File: classpath-0.14.tar.gz
  88 MD5sum: 227beb20b927c042628539601c867614
  89
  90 Here are answers to some questions you might have about this project and
  91 this release.
  92
  93 1). Who should use this software?
  94
  95 Although GNU Classpath is already capable of supporting many
  96 applications written in the java programming language, this is a
  97 development release. As such, there are still some unfinished
  98 components, and some problems are to be expected. You should install it
  99 if you are interested in GNU Classpath development or reporting bugs.
 100 We appreciate both.
 101
 102 For end users we recommend to use one of the development environments
 103 based on GNU Classpath which combine the core libraries with compilers
 104 and other tools needed for creating applications and libraries.
 105
 106     * GCC with GCJ  (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/)
 107     * Kaffe         (http://www.kaffe.org/)
 108
 109 2). What is required to build/install/run?
 110
 111 GNU Classpath requires a working GNU build environment and a byte code
 112 compiler such as jikes, gcj or kjc. When creating native code you will
 113 also need a working C compiler and up to date Gnome development
 114 libraries (gtk+, libart and gdk-pixbuf). More information on the
 115 precise version numbers for the tools and libraries can be found in
 116 the INSTALL file.
 117
 118 You will also need a runtime environment. The following runtime
 119 environments should work out of the box with GNU Classpath
 120
 121     * JamVM         (http://jamvm.sourceforge.net/)
 122     * Jikes RVM     (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/jikesrvm/)
 123     * Kissme        (http://kissme.sourceforge.net/)
 124
 125 Note that these are just byte code execution runtimes. For development
 126 of programs written in the java programming language you will also
 127 need compilers and other tools for creating libraries and/or
 128 executables (see question 1).
 129
 130 For other environments that might need modified version of the current
 131 release see the README file.  A complete list of virtual machines and
 132 compilers known to be based on GNU Classpath can be found at our
 133 website: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/stories.html
 134
 135 2). What platforms are supported?
 136
 137 GNU/Linux and FreeBSD on x86 and powerpc are regularly tested by the
 138 developers.  Many more architectures and platforms are supported.
 139 Check the actual runtime you use together with GNU Classpath for
 140 detailed information on the supported platforms.
 141
 142 5). Where do I go for more information?
 143
 144 The project home page with information on our mailing list can be
 145 found at http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/
 146
 147 A good overview of the current status can be found on the GNU Classpath
 148 Escape The Java Trap event held at FOSDEM this year.
 149 It includes reports and presentations on the current status and future
 150 plans: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/events/escape-fosdem05.html
 151
 152 6). How do I extend the functionality of the core classes?
 153
 154 Besides combining GNU Classpath with the runtimes and compilers above
 155 you might want to add support for additional encryption libraries and
 156 algorithms as provided by GNU Crypto
 157 (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-crypto/).  And for additional
 158 extension libraries (mail, xml, activation, infobus, servlet) check
 159 out GNU ClasspathX (http://www.gnu.org/software/classpathx).
 160
 161 Additional network protocol support is provided by a sub-project
 162 called GNU Classpath Inetlib, an extension library to provide extra
 163 network protocol support (ftp, finger, gopher) for GNU Classpath, but
 164 it can also standalone to ease adding http, imap, pop3 and smtp client
 165 support to applictions. Also distributed from
 166 <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/classpath/>
 167
 168 The following projects extend the functionality of GNU Classpath
 169 with additional algorithms, new core packages and tools.
 170 All are released under GPL compatible licenses:
 171
 172 * Jessie: A free implementation of the JSSE. Secure Sockets Extension.
 173   http://www.nongnu.org/jessie/
 174 * Tritonus: A implementation of the javax.sound API.
 175   http://www.tritonus.org/
 176 * gcjwebplugin: A plugin for the execution of applets in web browsers.
 177   http://www.nongnu.org/gcjwebplugin/
 178
 179 Note that the above libraries may already be available in some platforms
 180 that integrate GNU Classpath, such as in the Kaffe project.
 181
 182 6). What is new in this release?
 183
 184 New in release 0.14 (Feb 25, 2005)
 185 (See the ChangeLog file for a full list of changes.)
 186
 187 * Character encoders and decoders have been added for:
 188   iso-8859-6 (arabic), iso-8859-7 (greek), iso-8859-8 (hebrew),
 189   iso-8859-9 (latin-5), iso-8859-13, iso-8859-15 (latin-9), cp1047 (ebcdic),
 190   ebcdic-xml-us,ascii, windows-1250, windows-1252, UTF-16BE (Big Endian),
 191   UTF-16LE (Little Endian), UTF-32BE (Big Endian), UTF-32LE (Little Endian).
 192 * Full documentation for all classes can be generated (again) by using
 193   the --with-gjdoc configure option.
 194 * javax.awt.imageio support through gdkpixbuf.
 195
 196 Runtime interface changes:
 197
 198 * VMSecurityManager has been replaced by gnu.classpath.VMStackWalker.
 199   currentClassLoader() is no longer needed, and there are also two new
 200   methods with non-native implementations. VM implementors are encouraged
 201   to provide more efficient versions.
 202 * VMRuntime.nativeLoad() now takes an additional ClassLoader parameter.
 203
 204 The following people helped with this release:
 205
 206 Andrew Haley (nio optimizations)
 207 Andrew John Hughes (Locale, java.text fixes and generics work)
 208 Anthony Green (rmi cleanup)
 209 Archie Cobbs (Throwable simplification)
 210 Audrius Meskauskas (Swing JComboBox, JTextArea, and Timer fixes)
 211 Bryce McKinlay (serialization fixes)
 212 C. Brian Jones (rmi cleanups)
 213 Chris Burdess (Base64 fix, gnu.xml cleanups, http connection fixes)
 214 Craig Black (native state library, and gtk+ awt peer fixes)
 215 Dalibor Topic (PropertyAction cleanups, inner class and dead code cleanups)
 216 David Gilbert (DefaultListModel, Font text transform fixes and documentation)
 217 Graydon Hoare (Lots of GdkGraphics updates)
 218 Ito Kazumitsu (nio charset provider, FileChannel and SimpleDateFormat fixes)
 219 Jeroen Frijters (Serialization and Collator fixes)
 220 Julian Scheid (UTF8 fix and lots of gjdoc work)
 221 Mark Wielaard (JarFile, TimeZone, URLClassLoader, serialization and packaging)
 222 Michael Koch (AWT Window and Checkbox fixes, code cleanup, LocalInformation
 223 maintenance, checkstyle cleanups, swing and nio updates)
 224 Olga Rodimina (Jtable updates)
 225 Patrik Reali (Website maintenance)
 226 Quentin Anciaux (Lots of new character encoders and decoders)
 227 Ranjit Mathew (IdentityHashMap bug fix)
 228 Robert Schuster (nio charset and ChannelReader implementations)
 229 Roman Kennke (Better swing BasicLookAndFeel)
 230 Rutger Ovidius (GNU security provider update)
 231 Steven Augart (OpenBSD script fixes and stack walker documentation)
 232 Sven de Marothy (Lots of Calendar and TimeZone fixes and SpinnerDateModel)
 233 Thomas Fitzsimmons (Much awt gtk+ peer and Robot work)
 234 Timo Lindfors (regex fixes)
 235 Tom Tromey (generics work, classloader and xml fixes)
 236 </pre>
 237
 238 <footer>
 239
 240