Apache Harmony

Apache Harmony

Screenshot  Demonstration of the Apache Harmony running Java 2D Demo
Developer(s)	Apache Software Foundation
Stable release	5.0 M12 / December 5, 2009
Written in	C++ and Java
Operating system	Windows and Linux
Development status	Active
Type	Java Virtual Machine and Java Library
License	Apache License 2.0
Website	http://harmony.apache.org

Apache Harmony is an open source / free Java implementation, starting with Java SE 5.0. It will be licensed under the Apache License, Version 2. It was announced in early May 2005 and on October 25, 2006, the Board of Directors voted to make Apache Harmony a top-level project.

History

Initiation

The Harmony project was initially conceived as an effort to unite all developers of the Free Java implementations. Many developers expected that it would be the project above the GNU, Apache and other communities. GNU developers were invited into and participated during the initial, preparatory planning. Later it was decided not to use the code from GNU Classpath, and that Harmony would use an incompatible license; therefore blocking the sharing of code between Harmony and existing free Java projects. Apache developers would then write the needed classes from scratch and expect necessary large code donations from software companies.

Reasons for rewriting from scratch

The main reason for disagreements between the GNU Classpath and Apache projects is due to differences between the GNU General Public License (GNU Classpath's license also contains the linking exception) and Apache License. These disagreements are inspired by various organizations and individuals that prefer the Apache License, which allows for closed source derived works. GNU Classpath can also be linked with proprietary code, but it is legally difficult to make a closed source derivative of GNU Classpath itself. However, many free software developers think that the licenses and philosophy of these communities are not different enough to split the efforts, and the inability to find compromises is frequently estimated negatively. The occasionally appearing suggestion to view these projects as opposing forces does not find wide support. Enthusiasts of the free software tend to break the discussion with the simple words that "more free software is not a problem".

Difficulties to obtain a TCK license from Sun

The Apache Software Foundation sent a letter to Sun Microsystems CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, on April 10, 2007, regarding their inability to acquire an acceptable license for the Java SE 5 Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), a test kit needed by the project to demonstrate compatibility with the Java SE 5 specification, as required by the Sun specification license for Java SE 5. What makes the license unacceptable for ASF is the fact that it imposes rights restrictions through limits on the "field of use" available to users of Harmony, not compliant with the Java Community Process rules.

Sun answered on a company blog [1][2] that it intended to create an open source implementation of the Java platform under GPL, including the TCK, but that their current priority was to make the Java Platform accessible to the GNU/Linux community under GPL as quickly as possible.

This answer triggered some reactions, either criticizing Sun for not responding "in a sufficiently open manner" to an open letter [3], or rather Apache Software Foundation; some think that ASF acted unwisely to aggressively demand something they could have obtained with more diplomacy from Sun, especially considering the timescale of the opening class library [4] .

Since Sun's release of OpenJDK, Sun has released a specific license to allow to run the TCK in the OpenJDK context for any GPL implementation deriving substantially from OpenJDK.

Use in Android SDK

Dalvik, the Java Virtual Machine used in Google's Android platform, use a subset of Harmony for the core of its Class Library. However, Dalvik does not align to Java SE nor Java ME Class Library profiles (for example J2ME classes, AWT or Swing are not supported). Instead it uses its own library, built on top of a subset of Harmony.

Development team

Apache Harmony started from being mostly developed by several companies, receiving large code contributions at once. However, the general discussions on the mailing lists were always opened for everyone, and later the Apache Software foundation mentors put a lot of effort to bring the development process more in line with the Apache way, and it seems that their efforts were highly successful. In November 1, 2006, the current team of committers consisted of 16 developers, 12 of them from IBM and Intel.

Recent development status

Apache Harmony was accepted among the official Apache projects on 29 October 2006.

Architecture

The Dynamic Runtime Layer virtual machine consists of the following components:

1. The VM core: with its subcomponents concentrates most of the JVM control functions.
2. The porting layer: hides platform-specific details from other VM components behind a single interface and is based on the Apache Portable Runtime layer.
3. The Garbage Collector: allocates Java objects in the heap memory and reclaims unreachable objects using various algorithms
4. Execution Manager: selects the execution engine for compiling a method, handles profiles and the dynamic recompilation logic.
5. Class Library: is a Java standard library.
6. The thread manager that handle Operating system threading
7. The execution engine: contains of the following:
   1. The just-in-time compiler for compilation and execution of method code.
   2. The interpreter for easier debugging.

Support Platform and Operating System

The project provide a portable implementation that ease development on many platforms and operating systems. The main focus is on Windows and Linux operating systems on x86 and x86-64 architectures.

	Windows 2000	Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista	Linux RHEL, SLES, Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Fedora	FreeBSD	AIX	Mac OS X
IA32 (Pentium III or better)	In progress	Yes	Yes	In progress	Template:N/a	Template:N/a
x86-64 (Intel 64, AMD64)	Template:N/a	Yes	Yes	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	Template:N/a
Itanium (IA64, IPF)	Template:N/a	In progress	Yes	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	Template:N/a
PPC32	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	In progress	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	Template:N/a
PPC64	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	In progress	Template:N/a	In progress	Template:N/a
zSeries (31 bit)	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	In progress	Template:N/a	Template:N/a	Template:N/a

Class Library Coverage

File:Java platform.svg

Java Platform diagram showing Class Library

The expected donations from software companies were actually received. The Apache Harmony now contains the working code, including the Swing, AWT and Java 2D code which were contributed by Intel.

The part of the implemented classes is still smaller than in GNU Classpath (97.7% in the trunk versus almost 100% as of July 2007), despite some non-trivial applications were shown being running in 2006 JavaOne international conference.

Also Harmony's test suite is less extensive than GNU Classpath's for now (20000 tests [5] versus 50000 [6] as of October 2006).

The progress of the Apache Harmony project can be tracked against J2SE 1.4 and Java SE 5.0. Also, there is a branch for Harmony v6.0 in development for Java SE 6.0.

Apache Harmony developers integrate several existing, field-tested open-source projects to meet their goal (not reinventing the wheel). Many of these projects are mature and well known and other part of the library need be writing from scratch.

This is a list of existing open source components that are used in the Apache Harmony project; some of them were in use before the project started.

Component	Description
ICU	Mature C/C++ and Java libraries for Unicode support, software internationalization and software globalization.
Apache Xalan	An XSLT stylesheet processor for Java and C++ which implements the XPath language.
Apache Xerces	An XML parser library for Java, C++ and Perl
Apache Portable Runtime	Cross-platform abstraction library provides platform independence.
Apache CXF	Robust and high performance Web Services framework work over protocols such as SOAP, XML/HTTP, RESTful HTTP, and CORBA.
BCEL	Libraries for decomposing, modifying, and recomposing binary Java classes (i.e., bytecode)
MX4J	Java Management Extensions (JMX) tools for managing and monitoring applications, system objects, devices and service oriented networks.
vmmagic	Set of extensions to the Java language to facilitate systems programming in Java by adding direct memory operations etc.
Bouncy Castle	Libraries collection of lightweight cryptography for Java and C#.
ANTLR	language tool that provides a framework for constructing recognizers, interpreters, compilers, and translators from grammatical descriptions containing actions in a variety of target languages.

Documentation

Harmony is currently less documented than the alternative free Java implementations. For instance, in GNU Classpath every method of the central CORBA class (ORB) has the explaining comment both in the standard abstract API class [7] and implementation [8]. In the Yoko project, used by Harmony [9], the majority of methods both in the standard declaration [10] and implementing class [11] were not documented (at the end of October, 2006). Also, GNU Classpath supported both older and current CORBA features (same as Sun's implementation). Harmony, differently, left the central method of the older standard (ORB.connect(Object)) fully unimplemented.

Tools

A complete implementation of the Java platform also requires a compiler that translates Java source code into bytecodes, a program that manages JAR files, a debugger, and an applet viewer and web browser plugin, to name a few. Harmony currently has the compiler, appletviewer, jarsigner, javah, javap, keytool, policytool, and unpack200 [12].

Virtual machine support

Harmony currently has seven virtual machine implementations that run Harmony Class Library, all of which were donations by external groups:

• JC Harmony Edition VM, "JCHEVM," based on the JCVM's interpreter, contributed by the author, Archie Cobbs.
• BootJVM, a simple bootstrapping virtual machine, contributed by Daniel Lydick.
• SableVM, an advanced, portable interpreter, contributed by authors from the Sable Research Group; and the Dynamic Runtime Layer Virtual Machine.
• DRLVM, a just-in-time compiler contributed by Intel.
• BEA announced the availability of an evaluation version of JRockit VM running Apache Harmony Class Library.
• JikesRVM, an open-source meta-circular JVM that use the Apache Harmony Class Library .
• Ja.NET SE - the open source project is providing a Java 5 JDK (class libraries, tools, etc) that run on the .NET CLR. Ja.NET SE is based on the Apache Harmony Class Libraries.

In the end of November, 2006, the language support provided by these virtual machine was still incomplete, and the build instructions recommended to use IBM's proprietary J9 instead to run the class library test suite. However, this is not necessary anymore (as of July 2007). The DRLVM virtual machine is currently (as of July 2006) under heavy development, so a fast improvement of its features can be expected.

Applications status

Since its conception, Harmony has steadily grown in its ability to execute non-trivial Java applications (see here). As of July 2007, supported applications include:

• Eclipse : 99.3% of the 36000 RI test pass on Harmony's DRLVM + class library. [13].
• Apache Tomcat : 100% of the RI tests pass [14].
• JUnit : 100% of the RI tests pass [15].
• Apache Ant : 97% of the RI tests pass. [16].
• other applications pass with a high success rate, such as Apache Derby, Apache Axis, Log4j, Apache Velocity, Apache Cocoon, jEdit, and Apache Commons.

However, Harmony's incomplete library prevents it from launching some other applications:

• ArgoUML: because it requires a Java applet implementation, which is still not available in Harmony.
• Apache Geronimo runs on Apache Harmony with some issues and workarounds .
• Vuze, formerly Azureus, because of unimplemented security classes.

See also

• GNU Classpath
• List of Java virtual machines
• Free Java implementations
• Java Class Library

External links

• Apache Harmony Web Page
• Apache Harmony FAQ
• Apache Harmony source code repository
• JavaOne 2006 Online Harmony Session
• JavaOne 2007 Online Harmony Session
• Apache Harmony by Geir Magnusson Jr at JavaPolis 2006
• The Java open source debate - a good summary of the debate