Alternative classes.zip

[Per Bothner]

> 1. Kaffe's native methods (and presumably some of its internals) will
> have to be rewritten to use any alternative implementation, or

> Unfortunately I haven't seen any indication of a willingness to
> implement option (1).

I think it is a matter of time - Tim is very busy, as am I;
while we will need to replace classes.zip, there are more urgent
tasks.  However, if someone implements a new class library,
that would be very welcome.  That includes tackling the job of writing
the needed C primitives.

Until the library is minimally usable (e.g. at least java.lang
and java.util), it is not worth the hassle doing whatever is
needed to actually use it.  (This may mean making a hybrid
classes.zip with a mixture of Sun and Free classes.)

Whoever wants to want on a free library should co-ordinate
with Tim.  Tim mentioned that there are at least two partial
free libraries;  I don't know which is further along.

	--Per Bothner
Cygnus Solutions     bothner at cygnus.com     http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner