Tip for Intellij IDEA 3.0.5v2 with 1.4.1-p3^H4

[Greg Lewis]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 11:40:13PM +1030, David Bullock wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Alexey Zelkin wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 01:01:54PM +0200, Sheldon Hearn wrote:
> > > > I can well imagine that having access to quick compiling machine
> > > > would be a basic need (mine's nothing special, BTW, just an Athlon
> > > > XP 1800 with little else to do).  The FreeBSD foundation don't
> > > > exactly say what they're already doing, planning to do, and how
> > > > well aligned their actuals and their budget is, so it is hard to
> > > > know how to contribute.
> > >
> > > That's a fair comment.
> > >
> > > Greg, is it possible to open up the schedule of the BSD Java Porting
> > > Team to the public?
> >
> > I don't think that we have any specific schedule.  And I can't talk on
> > behalf of Foundation, but can share recent progress with my work (i.e.
> > porting of jdk1.4.x)

What Alexey said :).  Personally, I have enough schedules at work without
imposing one on a hobby.  That said, I think we'd like to do some things
for the FreeBSD 5.2 release.  Top of that list would be a 1.4.2 binary.

> > In last weeks (followed -p4 release) I have complete with JDK 1.4.2 port.
> > It's now in BSD/Java CVS and soon we'll have new patchset released.
> 
> Well, this is great news to be sure.  That will have been a
> quite quick turnaround, IMHO, and you guys are to be congratulated.
> I'm very grateful for the hard work that has been put in.  But
> JDK 1.5 will be coming out in the next 6 months (one hopes), and
> that's barely enough time to patch up the rough edges, and invest
> effort in turning a correct release into a *great* release.

Working on 1.5 is of small benefit at the moment.  Even if 1.4.2 was
completely nailed down and released there is still a licensing issue.

> Are the foundation sponsoring a developer to write the 'design
> of the Java Virtual Machine on FreeBSD handbook', so as to allow
> rapid scaling of the number of brains working on this and future
> ports?

I don't believe so.  You'd have to ask the Foundation to be sure.

> Is the precious time of (erm, all 3?) specialist JVM/BSD porters
> being wasted waiting for compiles that could be 0.5 as long by adding
> an extra CPU?

I haven't ever tried 'make -j' on a multiprocessor machine, so I can't
be sure :).

> If the foundation is employing some great developers, but they
> announce the JVM as 'finished', will they be kept on retainer
> until the next JDK release, or might some of them have to find
> a job in the meantime, and not be able to come back to the JVM?

Thats really a question for the Foundation, and would no doubt depend
on their funding.  

> Is the foundation going to benchmark the JVM?  Get it certified?

Pretty much anyone can do benchmarking.  However, correctness is the
first priority.  By certification I assume you mean compliance?  The
answer, if so, is yes, since thats the only way to do a binary release.

> FreeBSD can probably innovate in the area of getting Java apps
> installed (Java hooks into pkg_db) once the Metadata JSR comes out.
> Is this in the foundation's charter?

I can't speak for the Foundation.  The porting team have so far
concentrated on the J2SDK itself and will probably continue to do.

> What about simply getting ports made for the *mass* of Java software
> out there?

Feel free to send-pr and we'll try and get them committed.  It may also
be worthwhile emailing freebsd-java when you submit a Java port.  There
are interested committers who read the list but may not see the PR
otherwise.

> None of these issues or plans have been exposed to the public.

This is more to do with not having a policy or the like on most of
your questions than anything else.

> It's probably not the right forum to ask them, but these questions
> seem important to me.  What's being done is great.  But more could
> be done, perhaps.

More could always be done.  What is needed is interested people to
step up with time and/or money.

-- 
Greg Lewis                          Email   : glewis at eyesbeyond.com
Eyes Beyond                         Web     : http://www.eyesbeyond.com
Information Technology              FreeBSD : glewis at FreeBSD.org