Project proposal: Penrose

[Tim Ellison]

In accordance with the OpenJDK guidelines [1], I'd like to start the
discussion of a new project to explore and implement interoperability
between the Jigsaw project and OSGi implementations.

The Jigsaw module-system requirements document [2] calls for a level of
OSGi interop to be demonstrated by prototype. This is important, not
only because of the existing broad technical investment in OSGi that
should not be ignored, but also the opportunity for developers to see
and influence how these module systems will work together.

The goal of this project is to create a forum for the Jigsaw and OSGi
communities to collaborate on this requirement, and deliver a prototype
to demonstrate the module systems' interoperability.  I suggest that
such prototype work is best done in a separate 'sister' project,
maintaining close collaboration with jigsaw-dev. As a prototype, having
the freedom to experiment and modify code without impacting Jigsaw's
progress will be helpful to both.

This project will cooperate with the Jigsaw project and OSGi
implementation projects to show how OSGi will run on Jigsaw runtime, how
to load Jigsaw modules into OSGi frameworks, demonstrate how to use the
APIs of Jigsaw to achieve the goal, and evolve any APIs, tooling etc.

To ensure the broadest possible collaboration between potential
contributors the project will maintain a code repository and two
separate mailing lists under terms described by the OpenJDK Bylaws [3].
 The Penrose code repository and developers' mailing list will be under
the GPL license (GPL) version 2 with the Classpath exception and the
OpenJDK Assembly Exception, and the collaborators' mailing list will be
under the revised BSD license [4].  The collaborators' list will be used
for interop design and requirements discussions - the only code
exchanged on this mailing list will be examples and tests designed to
demonstrate interop between implementations.

We have already had a brief discussion on jigsaw-dev mailing list [5]
and this project idea was welcomed.

I am now looking for a Group Leader to sponsor this project, and as the
Compiler Group already sponsor the Jigsaw project, I respectfully
suggest that they would consider also sponsoring Penrose.

I also would like to invite anyone who supports this goal to nominate
themselves as an initial supporter, author or committer to be listed on
the formal project proposal to follow after the discussion.

[1] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/#new-project
[2]
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/doc/draft-java-module-system-requirements-12#osgi-support
[3] http://openjdk.java.net/bylaws#_A
[4] http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause
[5]
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jigsaw-dev/2011-October/thread.html#1526

Regards,
Tim