Pradeep (et al):

>> Thanks Tom for the information you provided. I have a basic question
>> here. What is the difference between Blackdown Java and Sun Java? Which
>> would one prefer and why? I just want to know this as I am not clear
>> about this. Is there any link that answers my questions?
> 
> Blackdown is the community project, Sun is the
> "commercial" project (there's a lot of cross-collaboration):
> FFI see:
> http://java.sun.com/linux/
> 
> especially the chat:
> http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/community/chat/JavaLive/2002/jl1015.html 

Let me elaborate...
1. Sun provides 24x7 support
      http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/support/

2. Blackdown provides a way for the community to report (and fix)
    bugs at:
       http://www.blackdown.org/cgi-bin/jdk

3. Blackdown gets drops of Sun JVM source and Sun gets
    Blackdown source (as well as fixes Sun does not have).

4. Sun provides the JVM on solaris/SPARC, solaris/IA-32
    windows/IA-32, Linux/IA-32 and Linux/IA-64 (interpreter
    and server compiler only).
    Blackdown provides ports on ARM(iPAQ), PPC, and x86_64
      http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/java2-status/
    Blackdown also has optional packages like JMF and Java3D.

5. Blackdown helps with experimental projects for Sun and assists
    Sun in fixing Linux OS related issues in the community.

There is a FAQ (but it seems somewhat old?)
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/docs/support/faq-release/FAQ-java-linux.html

Regards,

--Tom
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 3415 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20030625/8ce94694/smime.bin