pdf toolchain notes & suggestions

[Dalibor Topic]

Karsten Wade <kwade <at> redhat.com> writes:

> You might think it is preferable to use what has been invented at Red
> Hat, where the resources exist for gcj work.  It is not preferable.  We
> all want things to be interoperable and open.  Knowing that we can swap
> virtual machines means people get to make their own choice about free
> notJavaVMs.

Most of the free runtimes now largely pool together in the development of the
class library by contributing to GNU Classpath, a free as in 'free software'
implementation of the core java class libraries. You are not tied to the mercy
of a single project: there is a whole ecosystem of runtimes targetting different
needs, all willing to help their users, in my experience.

> For the same reason, perhaps we can (at least) share testing data and
> results with Debian people tackling the same issues.  It would _rock_ if
> we could get FOP to do everything well in all free scenarios.

Russ Burton, Arnaud Vandyck & Danniel Bonniot are the debian people that are
actively using or packaging fop on free runtimes there. I will contact them.

> Perhaps an informal sub-committee?  Just people interested in the topic,
> keep part of the conversation, and volunteer.

Sounds good to me.

> What's next?
> 
> Ideas:
> 
> * Get a new sub-project into CVS (fedora-docs/toolchain? or somesuch
> name).  Tammy, Mark, and I can commit into this for now, acting as
> conduits for changes from the rest of the project.
> 
> * We need 
>   ** Someone from kaffe

Count me in.

>   ** Someone from gcj

Mark Wielaard could probably recommend someone.

>   ** A willing FOP expert (either one who knows the code and use, or a
> coder and an expert user)

I'll get in touch with FOP developers.

>   ** A Debian liaison

I'll try to find someone from Debian's Java side to participate.

> Just some ideas.  I really do mean, "What's next?"

I'd also recommend getting in touch with the Java side of fedora, to see what
their FOP packaging plans and requirements are. I believe that Thomas
Fitzsimmons and Fernando Nasser are working on making JPackage work with gcj,
they may be able to comment.

cheers,
dalibor topic