M$'s Halloween document

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From: Godmar Back (gback@cs.utah.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 03 1998 - 20:37:02 EST


This is entirely non-technical/non-critical for you to read:

I'm sure all of have heard of the leaked M$ Memo about their proposed
strategies wrt open source software: (http://www.opensource.org/halloween.html)
Its authenticity was confirmed by Microsoft in the meantime, and maybe it
was even intentionally leaked.

The document itself is a very well-written analysis of developments and
trends in the open source community. I'd almost wished that Eric had kept
his comments to himself or at least put them in a separate document.

In Kaffe's case, I see a couple of things that might hinder Kaffe from becoming
more dynamic (I'm referring to points made in the MS memo here):

a) The Noosphere is maybe too small, at least compared to, say Japhar/Classpath.
   At least it may be perceived as being too small.

b) There is little or no componentization framework (which the author points
   out is an absolute necessity for the success of any OSS) is maybe not strong
   enough. (gc is an example, but also the jit or the verifier)

c) The goal is maybe not entirely clear to the public. (i.e. is it
   PersonalJava compliance? Is it 1.2 compliance? Is it 1.2 minus deprecated
   functions? Is it 1.2 minus old event model? Is it 1.1 plus something?
   Is it 1.2 minus something plus something?)

Food for thought...

        - Godmar


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