From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri May 10 12:48:01 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id MAA18719 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 10 May 1996 12:48:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hamby1.lightside.net (hamby1.lightside.net [198.81.209.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA18689 for ; Fri, 10 May 1996 12:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jehamby@localhost) by hamby1.lightside.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA00290; Fri, 10 May 1996 12:50:26 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: hamby1.lightside.net: jehamby owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:50:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby X-Sender: jehamby@hamby1 To: java-port-bsd@portia.com cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Java support in BSD kernel!? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk A friend told me that Linux would be "supporting Java in the kernel", which seemed questionable since for licensing reasons it would be impossible to embed the Java run-time into a GNU kernel like Linux (or FreeBSD for that matter)! The message he actually forwarded me told a quite different story: Basically somebody has patched the Linux kernel to recognize a Java .class file and run "java MyClass", in much the same manner as a shell script is executed with the command on the top line (e.g. "#!/bin/sh"). I know it would be quite simple to add this support to both FreeBSD and NetBSD, but since the versions of the JDK for these systems are not stable enough for production use (due primarily to lack of threads and/or Motif availability), I'm not concerned about doing this myself. In fact, I'm doing all my Java development on Solaris/x86! (I know this makes me a "traitor" to BSD, but at least it's not Windoze :-) However, when the JDK does become robust and widely available, it would certainly be a good idea to add .class handling intelligence to the BSD kernels if for no other reason than to say that we, too, have "Java support in the OS" even if it is a half-truth. Comments? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Jake Hamby| Ask me about Unix, FreeBSD, Solaris, The Tick, Motif, or NT, eh?| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Hi, can I interest you in buying some meat over the phone?" -Lotus commercial