Re: free alternatives to JDK
>>>>> "Brian" == Brian May <bam@debian.org> writes:
Brian> Why are free alternatives, eg jikes and kaffe not
Brian> compatible with jdk 1.2 and jdk 1.3 programs?
Brian> Is this because they cannot keep up with the rate of change
Brian> in JDK?
I cannot comment directly on jikes or kaffe, I've never looked at the
code. I think one word describes it though: resources. Sun, IBM and
a number of other organisations pay a lot of people to work on the jdk
codebase. The OSS community simply can't match that resource base.
Jikes, BTW, is not a JDK, it's just a compiler. You still need a JVM
and a set of standard classes to actually do anything with the
bytecode it produces.
Brian> If so, then this would appear to be a serious limitation in
Brian> Java, because you cannot test new programs (including new
Brian> open source programs, eg Cocoon2) without installing
Brian> non-DFSG software.
IMNSHO, the problem is that most open-source Java developers don't
consider this issue. They focus on free as in beer not free as in
liberty when considering Java. Worse still, lots of them have bought
into the marketing spin of Javasoft and simply don't read the
conditions using Java places of the recipients of their code. ALl
that matters is being sexy and working in the language
flavour-of-the-month.
The concepts behind Java are good (regardless of how you feel about
the language), but the legalities are completely screwed.
--
Stephen
"Good idea, O Lord!"... "'Course it's a good idea!"
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