On Friday 12 March 2004 01:23, Per Bothner wrote:
> Chris Gray wrote:
> > On Thursday 11 March 2004 18:44, Mark Howard wrote:
> >>The big question is: should we switch to CNI?
> >
> > No.
>
> Though I'm obviously in the CNI "camp", I tend to agree.
>
> But I think the folloup-question is: should java-gnome
> switch from JNI-only implementation to some kind of dual
> JNI-or-CNI mechanism. I.e. explore ways to reduce the
> overhead of JNI when CNI is avaliable. I suggested one
> approach in my previous email (which may be waiting for
> moderator approval on the kaffe and java-gnome lists).
A JNI-or-CNI approach such as you outlined would be fine.
The choice for java-Gnome should be independent of the choice of VM. If you
can meet a client's needs using java-Gnome and a free VM, go for it. But
when shit happens, and some system component you never even knew existed
turns out to need some JDK 1.5 functionality which Classpath doesn't have,
you should be able to switch VMs without having to throw away the whole GUI
that's been developed. Explaining to the customer that the free
implementation needs time to catch up on functionality that's only recently
been defined is one thing; explaining that your "Java" GUI bindings don't run
on standard Java is quite another.
In a more optimistic scenario, if Gnome is ported to a platform but there is
no CNI-based VM for that platform yet, it should be possible for java-Gnome
apps to run on that platform immediately.
In general I believe it should be possible to mix free and non-free software;
if the solution ends up being 100% free then so much the better, but if you
try to force that from the start you may end up with 0%. This appears also
to be the Classpath philosophy (otherwise the licence would be straight GPL).
--
Chris Gray [EMAIL PROTECTED]
+32 477 599 703
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