Project proposal: fbtoolkit

[Tom Marble]

All:

In conjunction with Steph Meslin-Weber [1] I would like to propose
a new OpenJDK project: fbtoolkit

The objective of this project is to produce a body of code which is
a lightweight framebuffer-based peer implementation for AWT and Swing.
The goal of this code is to remove the dependency on X or
other graphics layers such that graphics can be redirected to
a framebuffer (e.g. a raw buffer, VNC, etc.). This example
implementation will prefer pure-Java solutions, with public
extension points available to enter native resources as necessary.

In prototyping this functionality with OpenJDK it
should be possible demonstrate this graphics redirection
via a command line such as:
% java -Dawt.toolkit=net.java.openjdk.fbtoolkit.Toolkit -jar myApp.jar

NOTE: there are many other options which one would want
to specify (e.g. bit depth, encoding, geometry, port number, etc.) and
these can all be collected into a properties file which is
implicitly named (based upon the provider) or overridden on
the command line.

Examples of usage include: implementation debugging, device
emulation, multiple-head clone outputs/inputs, simultaneous
multiple-peer output, etc.

As this proposal is most closely related to the AWT [2] and Swing [3]
groups they have been added on CC: and as such we would like to
request sponsorship from these groups.

Please note that per the interim OpenJDK guidelines for Projects [4]
that followups should go the discuss list [5].

Thank you for your consideration,

--Tom & Steph

[1] Steph is a Participant
    Steph's blog: http://blog.tangency.co.uk/
    java.net ident: twiun
[2] the AWT Group: http://openjdk.java.net/groups/awt/
[3] the Swing Group: http://openjdk.java.net/groups/swing/
[4] Proposing Projects: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/
[5] discuss: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss