Re: [ JDiff-users ] status update

[Slava P. <sp...@gj...>]

I am posting this to jEdit-users as well...

mike dillon wrote:
> to be frank, the root cause of my move to finally make this decision
> definitively is that i don't want to start any new work in Java as it currently
> stands. at least not on a Swing application. as far as i can see, there will be
> no way of running a Swing application using only free software in the near
> future. possibly within a year, maybe two (of course, i'd love to be proved
> wrong by someone doing it tomorrow, but i doubt it will happen any time soon).
> more than that, i just don't like Java that much. it's cool and has its place,
> but i would like to be writing maybe hundreds of lines of Java, not thousands.

Just because there is no free version of Swing doesn't mean that one
shouldn't develop for it! Look at Windows; it ain't free, but there
is a lot of software for it. Politics and code should be kept separate.

> i like jEdit and my involvement in the jEdit community, so i doubt that i will
> be extricating myself from the suffocating grip of proprietary software before
> there is a viable free alternative. all i have to say on the matter is "Fuck
> Sun" for making it impossible for me to spend my time writing javax.swing for
> Classpath, just because their crappy docs led me to peek naively at their even
> scarier code.

Please don't abandon plugin central. As I've said, Sun may be clueless,
but that doesn't mean we can't write great apps in Java. So what if
there is no javax.swing in classpath? Although I would chose a free
version over a proprietary one anyday, most users don't care. All they
want is usable apps.

> i don't know what to do with the project. i'm aware of a couple of
> alternatives:
> 
> 1. someone with the requisite skills who already knows about jDiff is looking
>    for a project. they like jDiff. Voila! the project is alive again.
> 
> 2. http://unmaintained.sourceforge.net/ - for all i know, someone already
>    submitted it behind my back. who knows? i would rather not do this, but i
>    will if no one is interested.
> 
> i am open to suggestions.

Turn it into a jEdit plugin, chuck it into the CVS, and someone will
surely take over :-)

Slava