Re: Contributing The SableVM Virtual Machine To The Harmony Project

Hi everyone,

Given how scattered various projects and small developers groups are in Open
Source / Free Software community I think any effort that increases synergy of
our efforts is worth supporting.

I'll be happy to give any necessary permissions to relicense my code to make
such an effort a success.  It is not hard to imagine why and how it opens a
range of exciting possibilities.

I am looking forward to hearing from others on how they see themselves
supporting this kind of consolidation efforts that strenghten the power and
appeal of our communities.

I am more than willing to work with and within Harmony project to produce and
maintain a high quality free Java environment.

Bests,

        Gregory

+++ Etienne Gagnon [20/03/06 21:12 -0500]:
> Hi all!
> 
> I have been in informal discussions, lately, with the Harmony project,
> an "incubation" project of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).  If you
> have not heard of it, the Harmony project is an effort to create an
> independent implementation of J2SE 5 under the Apache License and to
> create a community-developed modular runtime architecture.  Here is the
> project's URL:
> 
>  http://incubator.apache.org/harmony/index.html
> 
> The Harmony project is rapidly gaining visibility, and has been
> receiving significant software donations from major industry players and
> individuals, the most important being:
>  - IBM: core Java library classes and VM/library interface
>  - Intel: security, cryptography, javax.net and unit tests
>  - Archie Cobbs: JCVM
>  - Daniel Lydickto: Bootstrap JVM
> 
> I think that it would be in the best interest of the SableVM project to
> participate to the Harmony project by adding our virtual machine body of
> code to the pool of existing Harmony code, so that it could be mixed and
> matched with the code of other virtual machines to create something
> bigger than all its parts.  The Harmony project would provide a leveling
> playing filed for various VM developers to start working together,
> instead of wasting their efforts on separate individual VM implementations.
> 
> Given the high quality of previous donations accepted by the Harmony
> project, I think that it would be an honor for our code to be accepted
> by their project.  But, in order to do so, two things must happen:
> 
> a) I must get the permission of all copyright holders to "donate" the
>    code (more details later about this), and
> 
> b) The Harmony project must accept the donation.  I will only propose
>    such a donation officially if I get the permission of copyright
>    holders to do so.
> 
> A few technicalities.  The Harmony project does not require "Copyright
> Assignment"; it merely asks for the copyright holders to do 2 things:
> 
> 1- License the code under the Apache License 2.0 (a very permissive
>    license):
>     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
> 
> 2- Execute a Software Grant (which is a license to allow the ASF to do,
>    more/less, whatever it wants with the code):
>     http://www.apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt
> 
> So, in simple terms: you would still retain your copyright on the code
> you wrote, but you would lose any control on the "donated" copy.
> 
> Also, contributing the SableVM code base to Harmony would not mean the
> end of the SableVM project, far from that!  It would simply lead to the
> following development model:
> 
> 1- The day to day maintenance of the general usage virtual machine
>    would be happen within the Harmony project.
> 
> 2- The SableVM code repository would keep a synchronized copy of the
>    Harmony trunk as a root for developing new features and doing
>    research, and for development in sandboxes.
> 
> Personally, I am quite excited at the opportunities.
> 
> So, what do you think?
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Etienne
> 
> -- 
> Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D.            http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
> SableVM:                                       http://www.sablevm.org/
> SableCC:                                       http://www.sablecc.org/



-- 
Gregory B. Prokopsky       <gadek@xxxxxxxxxx>
Debian GNU/Linux           http://www.debian.org
SableVM - LGPL'ed Java VM  http://sablevm.org
Why SableVM ?!?            http://sablevm.org/wiki/Features