Name: Luca Merolla

E-mail Address: luca.merolla@tiscalinet.it

Project Title: Use Open Source JVMs and APIs to build Java packages

Project Goals: Patch all/most java packages to run with free virtual machine and free APIs implementation. Bring Java to the platforms not supported by proprietary VM and classes.

Project Benefits:
Gentoo is a source based distribution and Java is one of the widely used programming language for open source project (see SourceForce). An Open Source Java VM will let you compile from source or patch it between src_unpack and src_compile of Portage.

Project Tasks and Deliverables:  
- Set up a free JDK: JamVM + GNU-Classpath (generics branch) + ecj
The eclipse java compiler (ecj) will be the choices as compiler for mainly two reasons: first it support 1.5 language features such as generics and enumerations, and second it has a big community behind.
With JamVM and GNU-Classpath (generics branch) you should be able to run Eclipse 3.1 with it to develop programs that use the new 1.5 language and core library additions.

- Integrate JamVM/GNU-Classpath/ecj as “Free JDK” available for java-config

- Individuate and patch, when necessary, all/most of the Java packages that use proprietary APIs implementations such as JAF and JavaMail to use gnu-jaf and gnu-javamail.


Project Schedule:  
The project will likely take most of the time especially during the patching phase, and will be broken up into four phases:

1.Free JDK  (completion by 16 of June): This step will involve to set up a “fully functional” free JVM with ecj compiler. 
2.Gentoo java-config integration (completion by 26 of June): Whit this the user will be able to select/switch from proprietary JVM to the free JVM.
3.Research phase (completion by 7 of July): This step will require about one/two weeks to find which packages need to be patched and where the patch should be applied.
4.Patching phase (completion by 21 of August): By the end of this phase all/most of the packages that require to be patched should run. In particular packages like Eclipse, Apache Tomcat, Azureus and hopefully OpenOffice2 will be able to run on free JVM.


Personal Statement:
I am a student on Computer Engineering at University of Modena, Italy. I'm currently on my final year.

I have been using Gentoo GNU/Linux as my main operating system for 3 years. It has given to me a good understanding of the operating system.

In March, for the course of Computer Networking, I worked on a project about a User Mode Linux system with Gentoo. In this project, I set up a Gentoo stage3 system with GNU Classpath and JamVM on every virtual host to run Apache Tomcat.