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I didn’t get an answer to why buglabs is using phoneME and not j2se 1.5 with a vm like jamvm and the gnuclasspath. Wouldn’t it make development easier ? the classpath could be shrink, divided into bundles but potentially supporting full j2se 1.5 :roll:

Anybody here agree? I’m really interested in this project and other small java vm related projects like Android, new j2se frameworks for cellphones, osgi for embedded devices And I would love to see j2se 1.5 as the base of all of them.

Even getting documentation could be easier?

Huli, I agree a 1.5 compliant JVM and class library that is "bundle-ized" would be an excellent environment for developers. Currently I’m not aware any open source projects that support this on the ARM… Do you know of any such projects?

JamVM, jamvm.sf net
From the webpage:

"JamVM is a new Java Virtual Machine conforming to the JVM specification edition 2 (blue book). It is extremely small – stripped on PowerPC ~110K, Intel 80K. However, unlike other small VMs it supports the full spec, inc. object finalisation and JNI."
"...
ARM: Originally ported and tested on the iPAQ running Linux (3950, with xscale PXA250 processor, though it should work on StrongARM). Later development on Neo1973 (ARM920T core). Little and Big Endian machines are supported, soft/kernel FP emulation, and OABI or EABI. ..."

It uses the GNU classpath, the author is Robert Lougher a great guy. License is GPL.

About the bundle-ized classpath, I wonder why nobody already did it like. A classpath divided in OSGi bundles, is it against some SUN license?
There is the SUN project "java kernel"/"java browser edition" but I don’t know the current status and they were not using osgi :(.

Hi Huli,

We were actually using JamVM before Sun released PhoneME Advanced. It’s a great virtual machine. One key feature that the Sun implemention provides is the just-in-time compiler. That said there is nothing stopping anyone from swapping out PhoneME for JamVM on their BUG.

In regards to GNU Classpath, I am not very familiar with it and cannot really comment. From an initial investigation it did not seem to be modularized or provide a mobile or light version. This may have changed, I do not know.

Regarding "bundle-izing" the class libraries, I do know there are some JSRs that are currently in the mix with various approaches to doing this. Unfortunately I don’t have much time to follow their progress.

Rather than running after the "latest & greatest" versions of the jvm, you need to target functionality, and getting more classes to be compatible, even if it is from and older JVM.

Let’s not forget that java has some stunning applications and a history that is not based on 1.5.

There is little point in loading the JVM up with items that are going to be used by less than 10% of the programmers that can be programmed round anyway , when 90% are looking for implementation from an older JVM.