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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!newsie.dmc.com!news.zipnet.net!zip0.zipnet.net!not-for-mail From: radics@zipnet.net (Andras Radics) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Will FreeBSD adopt Java like everybody else? Date: 2 May 1996 11:36:53 -0400 Organization: ZipCall Internet Services (zipnet.net) Lines: 35 Message-ID: <4makql$1ab@zip0.zipnet.net> References: <4m6gdj$8h8@sidhe.memra.com> <4m8abh$7tf@samba.rahul.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: zip0.zipnet.net In article <4m8abh$7tf@samba.rahul.net>, Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@rahul.net> wrote: > >>http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?960430.osvendorsjava.htm > > The new licenses from JavaSoft, the division of Sun Microsystems Inc. > that develops and markets Java technology, will allow the companies > to embed the Java Virtual Machine and Java class libraries in their > operating systems....SGI will embed Java in its Irix operating > system, and Sun will embed it in Solaris. IBM will embed Java in > Merlin, its forthcoming version of OS/2 Warp, as well as other > platforms. > >Unless they have redefined the word 'embed' recently, the above fragment >suggests that Sun, SGI, and IBM have all gone stark, raving mad and they >are planning to make their OS kernels into Java interpreters. "Into their operating systems", the man said, not into the kernel. The more obvious interpretation of "embed" here is that of recognizing yet another script-like executable that needs a 'shell' to run it. Not much more difficult than handling "#!", though magic number checking may have to be beefed up (depending on how Java binaries are identified). Hey, if Linux and iBSC binaries can be identified correctly at run-time, why should Java binaries (for the Java Virtual Machine Architecture, of course) be much more difficult? Then again, this change gets very close to being able to 'execute' arbitrary data files by invoking the correct filter as identified by the embedded magic number(s). The mechanism could be the same, but I'll need some convincing that "it's the Unix way". Andras -- /\ Andras Radics May the Source be with you. \/ radics@zipnet.net