RE: Patches to java.util.zip by Christian Schlichtherle

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Christian,

On Wed, 2005-08-31 at 14:05 +0200, Christian Schlichtherle wrote:
> For my personal education: What's wrong about adding constructors? The
> result would still be backward compatible to the JDK source, so I think this
> would make up a good solution. This is also what people have often requested
> from Sun if you look at the bug tracker thread on this topic.

In principle there is nothing "wrong" about it.
But it isn't really what GNU Classpath is currently focusing on.
Creating a Free Software implementation of the core class libraries is
already a lot of work. Tracking extensions would currently be additional
work that would distract from completion our set of core libraries.

It is really better done in separate projects that don't have explicit
compatibility as a goal. Your TrueZIP is a nice example of that. There
you can do real innovation and create a really great new interface for
people to use.

For GNU Classpath we are focusing on providing the freedoms people
except when using Free Software, better/smaller/faster/smarter
implementations, good and complete documentation and creating
opportunities for research and integration with other free software
platforms (see native compilation in gcj, integration with #c and .net
through ikvm, our gtk+ and qt peers for gnome and kde integration, all
the research done http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/stories.html
etc).

That doesn't mean we aren't looking for innovations, but we are looking
for ways to make them as transparent as possible to our users. GNU
Classpath should just feel/be better out of the box then other
(proprietary) implementations without the user having to explicitly use
extensions in their programs.

Who knows what happens when we are entering the endgame and GNU
Classpath is as complete as the proprietary non-free implementation. But
we are not there yet, and that is certainly still one or two years ahead
of us. But even then for a core class library implementation being
conservative about extensions is a good thing. If you aren't careful you
have to support a new way to use the library for years and then you will
have to make really sure that it is worth it both for your users and to
the developers that need to maintain backwards compatibility with it.

Cheers,

Mark

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