This week on harmony-dev (Nov. 13 - Nov. 20 2005)

[David Tanzer <st...@guglhupf.net>]

Much of this weeks discussion was a controversy about a keyword scanning
tool and some legal issues. There where two code contributions this
week: Mikhail Loenko contributed "security, crypto, and x-net libraries"
on behalf of Intel and Zoë Slattery contributed a "perl keyword scanner
and sample files". The second contribution resulted from the discussion
about keyword scanning wich I'll cover in more detail later.
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c6694B22B6436BC43B429958787E45498D558A8@mssmsx402nb%3e]
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c550216269.1132149869460.JavaMail.jira@ajax.apache.org%3e]

Last Sunday, Archie Cobbs announced "JCHEVM builds and runs" which meant
it "builds and runs on Linux, FreeBSD, etc.". He then discussed with
Enrico Migliore, Jean-frederic Clere and Tom Tromey about how to build
it and how the build process could be optimized.
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c4377BAEC.70207@dellroad.org%3e]

There was quite a lot discussion about how Harmony could better interact
with other projects under different licenses (especially GNU Classpath,
which is licensed under GPL+exception, but also projects licensed under
LGPL). The email threads where this was discussed are "Waiting for
license resolutions" and "The Unofficial 'Harmony, Licensing, the
Universe and everything' FAQ". There was lots of disussion, but I think
in short we could say: There is no solution yet nor will there be one
soon, but many people are interested and there are several people (both
at the ASF and FSF) who are working hard to find one (for example Leo
Simons, Stefano Mazzocchi and others here at harmony-dev). Stefano
Mazzocchi made an interesting suggestion here: To develop a VM interface
which is neither hosted by the ASF nor by the FSF and which is licensed
licensed under a neutral MIT license. Both projects could then implement
this interface and interact in this way.
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c4377CCF0.4070003@gmail.com%3e]
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c4378326A.4000304@theory.org%3e]

The email "[legal] Proposed changes for the Bulk Contributor
Questionnaire" by Geir Magnusson Jr. caused a long discussion about
keyword scanning tools. This was because Geir mentioned such a tool by
BlackDuck Software in the questionnaire where he suggested that every
contribution should be scanned: "(a scan for keywords that will help
identify code pedigree)". The two major problems people had with that
was the explicit mentioning of BlackDuck Software in the questionnaire
and the concern that the process might rely on the keyword scanner too
much. Later in this discussion most people agreed that using a keyword
scanner can support the process, but that it might be good to have an
open source tool for that. Because of that, Zoë Slattery contributed her
pearl keyword scanner.
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3cAFC8F3C7-1650-4BF9-A97E-B31A6B3821DE@apache.org%3e]

Mark Wielaard announced the "GNU Classpath hacker room at FOSDEM 2006"
where he invited us from Harmony to come too. Geir Magnusson Jr. and I
will be there, Leo Simons tries to come too. Kazuyuki Shudo asked Steve
Liao to clarify some points about a Re-entrant JIT in "[arch]
Interpreter vs. JIT for Harmony VM", but he got no answer yet. Geir
Magnusson Jr. has started "[vote] Accept keyword scan contribution",
there will be a result next week. Enrico Migliore discussed with
Jean-frederic Clere and Archie Cobbs about "compiling JCHEVM with MSVC".
Archie mentioned: "Unfortunately JCHEVM requires the GCC compiler right
now. It would take some nontrivial work to port it to MSVC".
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c1131986024.29591.64.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e]
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c20051115.045534.343182970.shudo@aist.go.jp%3e]
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3cB916BA2F-F8B9-4E7F-B46B-50CF6FD1FD4C@apache.org%3e]
[http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200511.mbox/%3c437F627E.4010105@fatti.com%3e]

Regards, David.

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-- 
David Tanzer, Haghofstr. 29, A-3352 St. Peter/Au, Austria/Europe
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--
From "Pavlov's Mice," after Pinky has kicked him into the cage 
bars while doing his Russian dance
Pinky: Gee, Brain, what are you doing over there?
Brain: Pondering your afterlife, Pinky.