Fwd: [ANNOUNCEMENT: future of BISS-AWT]
I think Peter Mehlitz' announcement to the BISS-AWT mailing list contains some interesting information regarding the future of BISS-AWT:
Delivered-To: biss-awt@knollo.biss-net.com
From: "Peter C. Mehlitz" <peter@transvirtual.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 21:17:12 +0100
Reply-To: peter@transvirtual.com
X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 24feb96 Caldera)
To: biss-awt@knollo.biss-net.com
Subject: [ANNOUNCEMENT: future of BISS-AWT]
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Some of you might have read Tim Wilkinsons announcement, made earlier that day
on the kaffe@kaffe.org mailing list (for those who did not, I will append it to
this message). Let me take up here and tell you what it means with respect to
our BISS-AWT work.
During the last months, many of you have asked Joerg and me about a 1.1
compliant AWT for kaffe. The reason why there was such a long period of silence
is pretty simple: this version already exists - and (until end of January) we
thought that we could come up with an announcement of its availability.
Sometimes life isn't that easy. Here are the facts:
1) By end of December 1997, BISS GmbH has ceased all support for our work on
BISS-AWT. They told us that they want to focus on their major goal, building
insurance applications.
2) At this time, we already had developed a fairly complete AWT 1.1 compatible
native layer for kaffe (holding a BISS copyright). This has not been published
yet, but - at least to my knowledge - BISS is willing to do so (under their old
license) as soon as they have figured out how to distribute it (they have a
bandwidth problem).
3) Not willing to abandon our work, we asked them for an agreement that would
have given us the opportunity to commercially exploit variants of BISS-AWT in
order to continue our work on the non-commercial version (without any support,
we were forced either to make our living with it, or to turn it into some spare
time hobby). By end of January, it became obvious that there would not be such
an agreement.
4) Since BISS has closed our accounts, we now do not have any access to either
the BISS-AWT mailing list or their ftp server.
5) In the meantime, Joerg and I teamed up with Tim Wilkinson (of kaffe) to form
"Transvirtual Technologies Inc.", a new company focusing on a complete, free
Java system (with commercial variants). The company is located in Berkeley, and
we will move to the US as soon as possible. Please see Tim's announcement for
more details. If there is somebody from Europe who wants to talk with us
(personally), we should do this as soon as possible.
6) WE WILL CONTINUE TO WORK ON BISS-AWT, even if we are now just "common
contributors" (a strange feeling if you are the author of such a work). We can
do this in the basis of the old LICENSE.BISS-AWT. As a matter of fact, we
already have done this, and we will be able to release our "contribution" as
soon as the "official" BISS version is published. Most probably, we will make
our new parts available under GPL.
7) With respect to the native layer, Transvirtual is currently working on a new
implementation, which will be available in March. However, if BISS will publish
our last implementation, you can immediately start to use kaffe for graphical
applications. We also will start a new AWT mailing list in the kaffe.org
domain, and you will be informed about that (since we cannot automatically
subscribe you).
Again, sorry for all this silence. I guess you now can imagine why it did
happen. I would prefer not to make any further public comments on it,
concentrating solely on our technical work. We will soon have a complete, third
party royalties free kaffe system. The best we ever had. And that keeps me
going (sitting might be better <:-)<.forthoseofyouwhorelyonbiss-awt:don'tworry,wedonotabandonit,staytuned.andforthosewhodon'twanttodothatanymore:thanksforyourinterest,patienceandsupport.bestregards,petermehlitz(peter@transvirtual.com)joergmehlitz(joerg@transvirtual.com)=================thisisayearofchanges,anditishightimetotellyouabout.bybeginningof1998,timwilkinson(ofkaffe)andjoergandpetermehlitz(ofbiss-awt)teameduptoform:transvirtualtechnologiesinc.1804fifthst.berkeley,ca94710,usa.asyoumightguessfromwhatwehavedoneinthepast,ourgoalisnotjusttoprovideourownjavasystemtechnology,butalsodoingthisinourveryspecialway.wearewellawareofthefactthatourformerworkgotpopularbecauseofourfreeusercommunity.manypeoplefromaroundtheworldhavecontributedtothiswork.theydeservethatwecontinuetofocusonafreesystemwithpublicsources.asaconsequence,thiswillbeourmaingoal:developinganefficient,portableandpubliclyavailablejava-compatiblesystemthatcomeswithsources.period.havingourowncompany,andnotbeingconfinedbyothercopyrightsandschedules,helpsalotonourwaytowardsthisgoal.butthereisnofreemeal.duringthepastyear,wealsoexperiencedconsiderable"exploitation"byothers,notcontributinganything,buttryingtomakemoneywithourwork.nowwe,ourselves,havetothinkabouthowtomakealivingfromthat.thewaywewanttocombinefreeandcommercialsoftwareresemblesabitwhatturnedouttoworkwithghostscript.andwhowoulddenythatthissystemisavaluablecontributiontofreesoftware,evenifitisnotunderthegpl?themainsystem(withsourcesforthevm,corelibrariesandtheawt)willbefreeforcommercialandnon-commercialpurposes,butnotforallplatformsandnotforsomebodywhotriestomakemoneywithmodifiedversionsofit.don'tworry,linuxandnet/free-bsdfolks.sinceyourcommunitiescarefortheirfreedom,theseplatformswillremainfree(atleastifyoudon'trunitonvendorspecific,proprietaryhw).therestrictedonesmostnotablyincludedosandsomeembeddedsystemplatforms.distributingthesystemoncd-romswillbecomeeasier.therewillbeversionsofthesystemwithoutpublicsourcesandbinaries.sincethisisacommercialmarketanyway,ormaincommercialtargetswillbe:*embeddedsystems*portstonon-standard,proprietaryhw*portstocommercialoperatingsystems,notsupportedbyothers*customisedvmsforacorporateenvironment(lowmemoryfootprintanddistributedvms)*customiseddevelopmentenvironmentsbesidesthis,wealsohopetogetsomesponsoringforthefreemainsystem.themoreweget,thelesscommercial,proprietaryworkwewillhavetodo.whydidwewaitforsolongtoletyouknow?partofthisisduetothefactthatittookussometimetogetoperational(movingtoberkeley,gettinganoffice,settingupservers).butthemainreasonisdifferent:wewantedtocombineourannouncementwithanew,fullreleaseofkaffe(includingjava1.1compatiblejavalibrariesandawt).thiswouldhavebeenpossiblesincejoergandpeteralreadyhadaworking,stand-aloneawt(basedonbiss-awt)innovember1997.unfortunately,bissgmbhceasedanysupportforbiss-awtattheendoflastyear,andwewerenotabletogetanyacceptableagreementtoreleasethatwork.thebottomlineisthatwehadtogobacktothelabs,todevelopanewawtimplementationwhichisnot``owned''byothers.thisisourtopmostpriority,andweexpecttogetitoutinmarch.thewholebissaffairwillbesubjecttoanadditionalannouncementinthebiss-awtmailinglist.enoughsaid-nowitisyourturn.pleaseletusknowaboutyourpointofview,whetheryouhavequestionsaboutthelicense,wanttocontributeworkforthefreesystem,thinkofsponsoring,areinterestedincommercialwork,orthinkofsomeotherkindofcooperation.givenalltheexpertisethatisconcentratedinsideoftransvirtual,andgivenyoursupport,wehaveitinourhandstobuildthefree,fastandsmalljava-likesystemwealldreamof.regardlessofallobstacleswhichhavebeenputinourwayduringthepast:thisisthebeginning.theraceison.regards,tim,peterandjoergformoreinformation:web:http://www.transvirtual.comemail:info@transvirtual.com
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