[Fsf-friends] OpenOffice

Sandip Bhattacharya sandip@lug-delhi.org
Tue Apr 19 00:07:40 IST 2005


On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 21:39 +0530, Joe Steeve wrote:
> "Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil@sancharnet.in> writes:
> > There are plenty implementations of Free (as in freedom
> > JREs. So, why worry?
> 
> Java is not standardized. Hence these JREs are not fully
> compatible with the JRE provided by SUN. Hence, there are always


Java is pretty well standardized, I think. The JVM has a proper spec,
and there are freely accessible reference implementations. The present
work that is required to be done is creating a complete independent,
patent-unencumbered, and Free implementation of both the JVM and the
class libraries.

GNU classlibs have been working on creating a Free implementation of the
class libraries and Kaffe, etc. have been working on a compatible JVM.

 The work to be done is however massive - Java standard libraries has
thousands of classes to be re-implemented, and biggest differentiating
factor among JVM implementations is turning out to be JIT and other run
time optimizations (e.g. Suns Hot spot technology). Therefore there is a
lot of catch up to do for Free alternatives.

Exasperated with the incompleteness of these Free alternatives, many are
instead doing the next best thing - cajoling/threatening/pleading Suna
nd IBM to Open source their implementations.

- Sandip

--
Sandip Bhattacharya    *    Puroga Technologies   *     sandip@puroga.com
Work: http://www.puroga.com   *    Home/Blog: http://www.sandipb.net/blog

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