Re: Java tools

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Jones <cbj@gnu.org> writes:

Brian> Copyright assignment is useful for making the core libraries
Brian> legally defensible in whole from a single party, the FSF.  I do
Brian> think that it has slowed the progress of the project, but I do
Brian> not know why this is so.

I think one reason is because it is a huge pain.  Sometimes if you
work at a company, getting them to let you sign is a major obstacle.
Also the process itself needs streamlining.  It regularly takes a
month for the paperwork to happen.  People often lose interest when
nothing happens for a month.  (And a month is pretty good -- sometimes
it takes much longer.)

Brian> To date I don't think we've refused to accept code under a
Brian> different license for tools.  Certainly a simple javap, javah,
Brian> and javadoc would be nice to have.

javap: look at jcf-dump in gcj.
javah: look at gcjh in gcj.

Installing gcj just for these tools is a bit heavy.  But hopefully
these things will start showing up in Linux distributions as standard
tools very soon.

I don't know if Sun's java[hp] are extensible from Java.  If they are
then you'll be disappointed by jcf-dump and gcjh; they are written in
(sometimes poor) C.

Tom