[jos-general] The World According to Iain... :)

[Iain S. <iai...@ya...>]

Hello all,

In the interest of expediting things I'll put out the "World according 
to Iain" as a strawman proposal. Just my take on the situation, layout a 
possible action plan, and give us something to poke at.  (Note 1: I'm 
only going to send this via email as my net connection is a bit limited 
right now.  If someone wants to plaster this into the Wiki somewhere 
that would be great too.  Note 2:  "expedite" as I feel time is of the 
essence.  The school year is about to begin (I've been out of school for 
a mere year so my body still feels the "back to school" pull... and I've 
been out shopping and saw all the back to school sales.)  In addition, 
despite our very limited numbers, we have managed to lose two more 
members, Jack D. Unrue and Phillip Gonia in the past week and had 
several others that have come in and then faded just during this current 
discussion (Warner for example).

(as for my original "vote" question, the question boils down to, should 
we follow this plan or another one?)

OK.  Here's my take:

***************

Re-organize JOS
--------------------------------
We should re-organize.  I've never been that fond of the JOS name or the 
JOS organizational structure so my proposal is:

Action Items

1) Cede control of JOS.org and related resources (mailing lists, 
website, sourceforge project, etc) to Gilbert who will continue the 
JOS.org effort as a Java Operating System research and collaboration 
project.  The new jos effort can join JOS.org as a "sister project" but 
will be run independently similarly to Jext (www.jext.org).  individuals 
are welcome to participate in either or both projects.

2) Form a new project focused very clearly on creating a Java-
based/focused os.  New name, new focus, new resources, same basic 
people.  This is a "fresh start" that gives us the freedom to quickly 
recast the project as we see fit.

***************

New jos Organization (NJO)
--------------------------------
I'm a pragmatic Open Source advocate.  I don't see source code access as 
fundamental right like the freedom of speech.  I believe there are 
situations where open source benefits everyone (and also situations 
where this is not true).  I believe in openness in research and academic 
pursuits.  I believe in open collaboration.  I believe people should get 
paid for their work and that you have the right to charge for software.  
I believe that code contributors should share in profits produced using 
their work.  For this new organization I propose:

License
-----------
Binaries produced by NJO are available at no-cost for download and 
minimal fee for CD's.

Core source is covered under a modified SCSL (see www.sun.com).  
Modifications are made simply to reassign the license to NJO rather than 
Sun.  Research/academic use is free.  Internal commercial usage requires 
passing compatibility tests.  Commercial products or redistribution 
requires compatibility testing and a commercial license (if you make 
money, NJO gets some of it).

Non-strategic source is released under a BSD license... essentially 
public domain with a disclaimer.  This would particularly cover useful 
tools and utilities.

I realize this is going to be highly controversial and unpalatable to 
GPL fanatics.  My primary reasoning is:

1) Allows us to negotiate licenses with other organizations.  In 
particular, I propose using SCSL code (the kvm and libraries) to 
bootstrap our development.  In the future we may be able to create our 
own version of both the vm and libraries.  But the first "ugly and 
quick" versions will be much faster to produce if we use the Sun code.  
Also opens the possibility of using a commercial kernel... QNX being a 
strong contender in my mind.
2) fits with my philosophy as a "pragmatic open source advocate"
3) provides possibility of hiring developers to work on NJO full time

Organization
------------------
NJO needs to form a company to manage the commercial license.  I would 
be willing to do this.  In this case, it would be a CA, USA company.  
Technical decisions are made using an Apache model.  Business decisions 
are made as they do in coops (consensus voting amongst "members" who are 
either investors or "sweat equity" owners).  A "business manager" CEO 
makes day to day business decisions and voting is monthly on 
"significant issues" along with full disclosure of operations 
(financials, etc). Eventually we transition to a Sun/Java Community 
Process model.

Product/Focus
-----------------
NJO needs an extremely clear and easy to execute product focus to 
succeed.  To maximize the chance of success, exploit the current "hot 
topic" in Java development, and create a very interesting design, I 
think NJO os v. 1.0 should be:

J2ME CLDC MIDP compliant
runs on x86 (386+)
VGA (640x480) 16 color micro-gui
ne2000 ethernet networking
keyboard and mouse support.

If we have time I'd also like to add PPP modem support.  Essentially it 
will work like a PalmOS written in Java for a PC.  The system would be 
built with:

Microkernel - picoBSD (stripped down FreeBSD www.freebsd.org) or QNX 
(www.qnx.com).  Essentially boot up and provides the C libraries to run 
the kvm... also nice to have a kernel tcpip stack so we can avoid 
writing the tcpip stack for the kvm.  BSD is nice because the license is 
extremely flexible, their code is clean, and their stuff is FAST.  QNX 
is a nice commercial RTOS that developers can download and use for 
free.  QNX will really accelerate our development but when we decide to 
distribute it, it is going to cost us (at least one developer seat at 
~$5000 and a distribution license... less than $1/unit at high volume).  
It may be easiest to bootstrap and only internally release for "research 
purposes" a 1.0 using QNX then a 2.0 public release using a custom 
microkernel (picobsd or our own custom kernel... I'm really attracted to 
the 32 kernel described in the book, Build your own 32-bit OS by 
burgess).

kvm - J2ME CLDC KVM.  We use the Sun SCSL'd kvm and libraries and port 
them to our microkernel.  The port is trivial as the KVM is relatively 
simple and requires very little from the microkernel (threading is done 
in the kvm not the os).

CLDC MIDP libraries - We use the Sun SCSL'd libraries.

NJO GUI libraries - Custom libraries that implement the MIDP graphics 
libraries for our particular platform (vga).  For BSD this is going to 
have be some native graphics library (Xwindows seems way too much 
overkill for this).  For QNX we use their excellent neutrino GUI.

NJO drivers - Hard coded drivers for standard ibm vga video, ne2000 
ethernet, keyboard, mouse.  Whatever the underlying microkernel offers 
here is what we'll use.

NJO desktop - a pure Java desktop app to handle MIDP midlet 
installations, manage applications, provide the user operating 
environment, etc.

Action items

Obviously discuss and decide on each of the major issues (organization, 
licensing, product focus).  Unless someone has a real strong opinion on 
any particular issue we can tackle them in this order:

1) Decide to split off separate NJO (I don't think this proposal is 
appropriate under JOS)
2) Decide on NJO organization (license + biz org)
3) Decide on product focus (overall platform)
4) Decide on 1.0 implementation details (picoBSD vs QNX vs etc)
5) Form organization, start development.

***************

Obviously this is a pretty radical departure from the current JOS status 
quo.  I expect people to have some strong reactions and hopefully good 
feedback.  Blast away.  :)

-iain


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