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Netscape releases Free JVM, ElectricalFire
HoserHead writes
"Netscape has released a new JVM-JIT compiler called
ElectricalFire. It originally started as an in-house
commercial compiler project but is now purely Open Source:
there are now no plans to turn it into a commercial product.
ElectricalFire also contains none of Sun's code. Check it
out at its homepage
on mozilla.org." It's NPL'd and they are calling for
developers.
Cool! This could be just what Java needs to get on Linux in a big way...
Michael.
I recommend reading the "What's New" link. Damn, Netscape knows how to throw great release parties!
The only other free Java tools that I know of are Kaffe and Guavac. However, they are still quite immature. If some sort of collaboration could occur, it would be wonderful.
Have you noticed that the Java tools you are referring to (most likely) don't come with your distribution?
Looks good. I hope it fulfills their wishes of being about par with compiled C/C++ code. I haven't finished browsing the web page. The faq plugs other free Java projects such as the LGPL Class Path project. Maybe a look at other open VMs such as Kaffe will help this VM along. I wonder how much benefit there will be in just compiling byte code (it does not interpret byte code) will have? This VM seems focussed on RAW SPEED. Maybe something between a traditional VM and something like TOWERs compiler but a bit diff. than just a JVM with JIT... I better stop rambling. But this looks good. Thanks Netscape :)
One important free JVM project -- Japhar -- is LGPL'd, thus Electrical Fire would have a compatible license.
Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) too lazy to log in.
To clarify, Netscape admitted the existence of Electrical Fire a long time ago (I remember bugging toshok about it after reading the article :-)). However, the source was just released today.
I like dangerous-sounding software.
Wesley "lazy" Felter - wesf@cs.utexas.edu
What exactly is the difference between the NPL and GPL? From what I've seen, they look pretty similar, except the NPL has the words 'Netscape' and so forth scattered around. Give me a link if I've missed the discussion.
Which is what all Java JIT compilers are, it's something of a misnomer I guess.
That's incorrect. A typical JIT is a compiler that conforms to Sun's JIT interface standard for Java. EF is an interpreter runtime (with its own classloader etc) which also has a high performance SSA based JIT.
checked it. still think you're loony though :)
GPL LGPL NPL Ezekiel I really don't care as long as it's really fast, _some_ semblance of open source and can be used in any browser on most platforms. Don't forget that it must be really fast
This would make a great JVM for BeOS. It's open source and C++. If only I had more time in the day...
I believe the X11 license is GPL-compatible.
Thanks. What stops people bundling whatever Netscape releases with some token code, calling it a larger work and rereleasing it under the GPL? Or an ammended GPL, if they wanted to be nice to netscape?
And if nothing does, why arn't we doing that?
The JVMs and JITs on Linux generally suck. Hopefully Netscape's initiative will bring some maturity into Linux Java platform.
Maybe this time they can replace the rather cheesy-looking Motif-based awt class implementations with nicer GTK ones.
Swing annoys me simply because the hardware hasn't caught up with the concept yet. A GTK look and feel could be plugged-in quite nicely, but Swing still runs slow as a dog on older hardware..
Pity.
Also weight lifting champion now WWF wrestler Mark Henry.
Royal Rumble tonite!!!
or icq clients, or aim clients, or slashdot headline displayers, or...
I just don't get it. What can be done with Java that can't already be done with C/C++ binaries, mod_perl, animated gif images, javascript or html?
Can someone PLEASE explain to me something practical they are using Java for? Sorry to sound like a troll.
There's a link to that band on the ElectricalFire page
Nothing, some people think that Java is a nicer language to work with.
-Paul
It was in an interview with Marc Andreason and JWZ. During it, Marc said to JWZ. "Is it ok if I pre-announce something here?" JWZ said "Go ahead"
Then Marc goes on to talk about ElectricFire
I just wrote a viewer for old Atari Atascii movies in Java. I used Java so it could be put on a web page and these things could be viewed on-line. None of the other technologies you mentioned would do the job.
:)
Anyway, this was a Java-learning project for me, and I learned that I don't like Java!
The applet runs slightly differently on every JVM, and the JVM do weird things that caused me lots of pain. I'm going back to C/C++.
What can be done with C/C++ that can't be done with dircet Assembly programming?
The answer is nothing.
Java is just another language, but it happens to have a richer object & API set than others, and it happens to have the ability (if you're careful) to have cross-platform binaries.
The networking API in Java is damn sweet, and it's object libraries are extremely well designed in general. (There are exceptions, as always, but for the most part this is surprisingly true.)
If Java was normal machine-code-compiled only, I'd still use it, because of the rich object set. That it can, with some care applied, be cross-platform is just a huge benny to me.
You pick and choose your languages as they fit your problem domain. It's really that simple.
I agree, but it's more endemic than that. The core problem with getting AWT to work is that it's viewed as 'chrome' by a lot of people. It's UI work, and basically grunt UI work isn't 'fun'.
While this is fine and all for screw-around projects, what it really means is that people don't spend the time in Open Source projects in general to give that last 'fit and finish' to programs.
Commercial projects have people whose *JOB* it is to apply the fit and finish, do the UI programming, and make it pretty. Open Source has to rely on volunteers, and people generally only volunteer for things they find fun. The list of people I've ever met who find UI work fun is pretty darn short.
I'm not proposing a solution, sadly, just pointing out a serious problem.
how many half assed unixes did it take to
get a good one(s) ?
A HELL OF A DAMN LOT
SO ALL YOU HALF ASS JAVA DEVELOPERS BETTER HURRY
UP, THE CRITICAL NUMBER SEEMS TO BE ABOUT 1904817930421985072980457289045\
before anything is implemented well.
hey, who let these asm coders in here?
Yes, it's a (not-so) subtle reference to Coming To America. "Let's hear it for Sexual Chocolate [no clapping], sexual chocolate [1 person claps]"
The answer is simple: C++. Since, fortuantely, C++ compilers for Unix still suck, most Unix people are programming in languages which aren't C++. C++ fools you into thinking that you can write bigger applications, and you can, but you can't write bigger applications with C++ that work. You'll ~never~ get memory allocation to work perfectly in a large application, and there is believed to be a pointer error in every 30 lines of production commercial C++ code.
If you're an open source zealot, tell people they should be coding in Perl or Lisp or something, even something weird like Pike, but not C++. I, BTW, have lived through the whole thing. I got sick of Java too, but after using it side by side with other safe languages like Perl and Python, I decided that all things considered I was more productive and liked programming better in Java and that I get better performance in Java.
(1) Great, another "open source" project that's incompatible with the GPL. Woohoo!
(2) ElectricalFire has a tiny Noosphere. There are Free (GPL'd) JVM's available.
(3) I guess AOL has started cutting costs hardcore now. "Who needs these expensive developers when we can get people to do the work for free?"
From the info I read on the mozilla web site
it looks like EF is just a JIT compiler. It
is not a JVM like Kaffe or Japhar or the JDK.
It looks like everyone and their mom is going to implement their own JVM instead of working with existing code. It'll be just like IRC clients: a zillion implementations with little differentiation.
I find it very difficult to get excited about this new JVM. Any clever implementation tricks it may offer won't give it the advantage for long; they can be easily folded into existing open source JVM's.
This was mentionend in Linux Journal a long time ago (shortly after they mentionend that they were releasing the code to mozilla...).
It was in the mag, I'll check to see if I still have it (so I can get the #). It was also mentionend shortly after on the Java Lobby mailing list (I had asked if anyone else had heard of it).
No, it's quite customary for Slashdotters to bash everything not GPL. I remember this one widget library that announced it would use a quite open license. It is still hated by them...
If it's not L/GPL, it's crap.
---
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
There are no plans to make this a commercial project. Netscape just gave a fast JVM/JIT compiler with a lot of potential to the Open Source community (mozilla.org) and you're bashing them for it. Makes a *lot* of sense.
If they really don't plan on releasing this as a commercial product, why did they use the NPL instead of the GPL? Or perhaps a GPL with an out to allow linking with NPL source.
I don't like the fact that there's more source code coming out that's incompatible with the GPL. I'd rather put my support behind TYA.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I am a little curious wether JIT compilation is the way to go.. I believe it would be better if a JVM worked in two threads: one thread performs batch compilation and one thread interprets the JVM code, but switching to a compiled method when available. The interpreter should also move methods to the top of the compilation queue when they are entered. With the JIT approach, I am afraid that interactive programs would lose. The compiler would not use the idle time, whereas the concurrent approach would use it.
.... Or is there something that I have not understood?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Another partially done JIT/JVM. Just what the world needs - instead of one open source JIT/JVM that works, we've got 4 or 5, none of which can handle java.awt classes.
This is the biggest problem with open source - everybody wants the ego boost of doing their own project, rather than adding their time and effort to somebody else's project. So you end up with 30 half-assed projects instead of one or two good ones.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
You want to know how commercial software is any better? I'll tell you:
- There is one commercial JVM project, Sun's, and it's produced a working JVM.
- There are a shitload of Open Source JVM projects, and not one of them has produced a working JVM. Kaffe? Nope, it doesn't work with any of my programs? ElectricalFire? Nope, no java.awt support. Japhar? No, same problem. GCJ? No. CACAO? No.
See, lots of projects, no results. If there were *one* project that all those people were contributing to, maybe there would be a hope in hell of actually producing something.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
It will take quite a while before EF will begin to run full applications (at least reliably). In the meantime, TYA is an excellent JIT front-end to Sun's JVM. It gives quite a performance boost on Linux w/ JDK/JRE 1.17.
ftp://gonzalez.cyberus.ca/pub/Linux/java/
Did anyone else see "Coming to America"?
There was a band in it called "Sexual Chocolate" and I can only assume that's where it came from.
the movie itself was light fare, but pretty fuckin' funny IMHHO
Old Qt license mind you. Even RMS likes the QPL as it is now.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Does this overlap with Kaffe work?
Surf over to the ElectricalFire site, and read its FAQ -- especially the part near the end about the project's code name. What a riot!
This is big if only because it's the first public release of code from Netscape since coming under the wing of AOL (though the deal's not done yet, Netscape is surely already dancing to AOL's tune). This bodes well for AOL's future relationship with the OS world.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
RMS accepts the QPL. I would guess there has never been a license besides GPL & LGPL that he really likes.
RMS likes the GPL, of course. I don't think he really likes the LGPL; it's a watered-down version of the GPL, which is what he really wants everyone to use. RMS probably considers the LGPL as a "necessary evil" that should be abolished in favor of the full GPL as soon as possible.
I seem to recall hearing (way back when) that RMS was very reluctant to release the LGPL, but eventually gave in and allowed it. (Notice that he always promotes the GPL over the LGPL.) No, I don't have a reference handy to substantiate that; it's just what I recall hearing or reading back when the LGPL was released.
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay