Japhar

What is it?
-----------
Japhar is the Hungry Programmer's Java VM.  It has been built from the
ground up without consulting Sun's sources.

Why another Java VM?
--------------------
Japhar is different because it was designed from the beginning to
conform to the JNI Spec published by Sun.  Therefore, it's easy to
actually embed japhar in your own programs (you can even create more
than one Java VM in the same process).

Performance is important to us, but it is secondary to our primary
goal, which is to very quickly follow specifications as they are
published. We have, for example, begun work on following the Java VM
Debugger Interface (JVMDI).  The goal is to hook up GDB to this
interface to provide a consistent debugging environment.

That being said, there are plans to work on a JIT for japhar.  

Also, japhar uses thread libraries that are native to the machine.
Both pthreads and cthreads are supported.

Downloads and home page
-----------------------
Downloads of the current distribution are available at:

<URL:ftp://ftp.japhar.org/pub/hungry/japhar/>.

The homepage is at <URL:http://www.japhar.org/>.

Anonymous CVS repository
------------------------
We have set up an anonymous CVS server on anoncvs.hungry.com to
service the japhar users.  The CVSROOT to use is
':pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.hungry.com:/cvsroot' with password
'anoncvs'.  Use the module name 'japhar'.  This repository is sync'ed
up with the private one once an hour, on the hour.

Want to Help?
-------------
If you're interested in helping out, we've setup a mailing list for
discussion about Japhar.  The address is <japhar@hungry.com>.  To
subscribe, send a message with "subscribe" in the Subject: line to
<japhar-request@hungry.com>.  Bug reports and patches are always
welcome.

If you need to contact the maintainers of the Japhar project, please
send an email to <japhar-core@hungry.com>.

Regression testing
------------------
We have made a DejaGNU testsuite for Java which we use to assure that no new
bugs sneak into the distribution.  We recommend that you run the tests and
check for new bugs before you send patches.  For information on using the
testsuite please see the README in the testsuite directory.

Other similar projects
----------------------
We are aware of the following free projects.

  Kaffe - JIT JVM (GPL)
	<URL:http://www.transvirtual.com/kaffe.html>
  TYA - JIT compiler for i386/Linux (GPL)
	<URL:http://www.dragon1.net/software/tya/>
  GNU Classpath - clean-room impl. of Java 1.1 class libraries,
        including native code integration with JNI-enabled VMs (LGPL)
	<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/classpath.html>
  JOS - Java based operating system
	<URL:http://www.jos.org/>
  KORE - clean-room impl. of Java 1.0.2 class libraries (BSD)
	<URL:http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/java/kore/>
