From: Norbert Bollow <nb@thinkcoach.com> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: This week in DotGNU - no 4 Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 22:32:19 +0100 This week in DotGNU - no 4 (November 12, 2001) ============================================= See http://dotgnu.org for general information about DotGNU. In this issue: * Assistant maintainers needed for GlobalLogin auth project * New versions of Portable.NET and pnetlib * Status of Free Software efforts on Java Assistant maintainers needed for GlobalLogin auth project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mason Ham is working on the final preparations for the release (under GPL) of the fully functional GlobalLogin virtual identity system which is implemented in Java. Since he expects a high level of interest for this system, he is looking for three people who are interested in helping him maintain it. For each of the areas "database", "crypto", and "servlets" one such sub-maintainer is sought. Mason Ham can be reached by email at mlham AT zambit DOT com. New versions of Portable.NET and pnetlib ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Portable.NET 0.2.2 and pnetlib 0.0.6 have been released: Web Page: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html Download: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnet-0.2.2.tar.gz Library: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetlib-0.0.6.tar.gz The major changes in this release are to the runtime engine and the linker. The engine now understands most of the IL instruction set. The main omissions are exceptions, interfaces, delegates, and tail calls. The engine can now run "Hello World" slightly better than the last release. Because virtual methods now work, it can use the stream classes in "System.IO" to do the heavy lifting on "stdout". Status of Free Software efforts on Java ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I asked about the status of the Free Software efforts on Java, here is the answer Brian Jones gave me: With the exception of the AWT, I would say the essential components are mostly working. There are things like cleaning up the JNI code to check for exceptions more appropriately and the possibility of using APR (Apache Portable Runtime) to make that code more portable to other platforms without much effort. A few places within the code base have UNIX-isms that shouldn't be where they are. I don't think the SecurityManager is integrated into every method it is supposed to be. It would be nice to support multi-language exception messages in both Java and native code but that might be too much overhead. I'm not confident in our text/string/character implementation which is different from what gcj uses... mostly because it seems to fail every Mauve test. Finally, there are not enough Mauve tests to make me say it works well because a lot of functionality does not yet have a Mauve test. That's the ugly side... the other side is that multiple VMs use some form of Classpath and you can actually run some applications with it. Contributing to Mauve is really easy and if you just barely know Java you can still make valuable contributions there. P.S. Translations of "This week in DotGNU" into other laguages are very welcome; please let me know about them. Currently the only language into which "This week in DotGNU" is translated is Polish. "This week in DotGNU" is Copyright (C) 2001 by Norbert Bollow. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire issue is permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is preserved. ==================================================================END. -- A member of FreeDevelopers and the DotGNU Steering Committee: dotgnu.org Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland) Tel +41 1 972 20 59 Fax +41 1 972 20 69 http://thinkcoach.com Your own domain with all your Mailman lists: $15/month http://cisto.com