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Re: Stallman lamenting that GCJ and ClassPath are still (read: eternally) catching up ...
- From: Chris Burdess <dog at bluezoo dot org>
- To: Christopher Marshall <christopherlmarshall at yahoo dot com>
- Cc: java at gcc dot gnu dot org
- Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 09:10:43 +0100
- Subject: Re: Stallman lamenting that GCJ and ClassPath are still (read: eternally) catching up ...
- References: <20040413183342.89365.qmail@web41503.mail.yahoo.com>
Christopher Marshall wrote:
In terms of "useful things it can do", gcj is ahead of Sun in some
ways, is it not? The license
and the ability to compile to native exectuables, for example. Does
gcj support more
architectures? If it did, that would be worth singing about.
On PowerPC Linux, the free Java environments (gcj, kaffe, etc), and
IBM's JDK are all more up to date (1.4 feature-complete) than Sun's
implementation (latest is Blackdown 1.3.1).
I see Richard's post as a way [2] of introducing a new audience how
far
GNU Classpath has come, inviting them to try it out for their apps,
and
dip into the pool of free software java runtimes. If more people from
the Java open source world read the article and try out their
applications and libraries with GNU Classpath based runtimes, report
the
bugs they find, and eventually submit bug-fixes and become GNU
Classpath
developers themselves, then we're all in for the better.
That was my take on it also. Stallman's article was pretty good.
Part of it did seem more like a
plea for help though (help us before the forces of evil extinguish us
once and for all! we are so
fragile!), when it could have sounded like a "look what we can do and
they can't" piece.
My take on it was more along the lines of: if you are developing free
Java code, do not assume WORA just because it works on Sun's
implementation - *test* your code in *free* Java environments.
--
Chris Burdess