New transport type: Java Communications API

• Key: DIRMINA-34
• Type: New Feature
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Major
• Assignee: Julien Vermillard
• Reporter: Trustin Lee
• Affects Version/s: 0.7.0
• Fix Version/s: 2.0.0-M1

Description

Java Communications API provides ways to access serial and parallel ports available. We could implement transport type implementation of Java Communications to provides users access to serial and parallel ports.

Comments

Can we distribute Java communications API jar files in our distribution? Anyone who knows about Sun licenses?

[Julien Vermillard]

As seen on the download page there is a download per platform. It contain native code and I think it's not really easy to bundle it with the pure java MINA
http://java.sun.com/products/javacomm/downloads/index.html

The Licence is as usual a weirdo Sun one :

[SNIP]
1. LICENSE TO USE. Sun grants you a non-exclusive and non-transferable
license for the internal use only of the accompanying software and
documentation and any error corrections provided by Sun (collectively
"Software"), by the number of users and the class of computer hardware for
which the corresponding fee has been paid.



2. RESTRICTIONS Software is confidential and copyrighted. Title to Software
and all associated intellectual property rights is retained by Sun and/or its
licensors. Except as specifically authorized in any Supplemental License
Terms, you may not make copies of Software, other than a single copy of
Software for archival purposes. Unless enforcement is prohibited by
applicable law, you may not modify, decompile, reverse engineer Software.
Software is not designed or licensed for use in on-line control of aircraft,
air traffic, aircraft navigation or aircraft communications; or in the design,
construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility. You warrant
that you will not use Software for these purposes. You may not publish or
provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to
any third party without the prior written consent of Sun. No right, title or
interest in or to any trademark, service mark, logo or trade name of Sun or its
licensors is granted under this Agreement.
[/SNIP]

so I think it should be optional

[Julien Vermillard]

There is some issues with Sun's JCA 3.0. It broken compatibility with external implementation, using weirdo hacks in the common code.

Extract of http://www.rxtx.org

# Sun Dec 18 2005 After Sun Javax.comm broke their flexible 2.0 API, removed it and replaced it with an API version 3.0 rxtx can not support for almost all platforms rxtx supports, the rxtx 2.0 release has been hidden and rxtx 2.1 which replaces the API in package gnu.io is being offered to avoid confusion. The rxtx 2.0 support will resume if the design issues are resolved by Sun.

http://mailman.qbang.org/pipermail/rxtx/20051216/001960.html

So I wait and see for see if an implementation on Sun's Java Communication API V3 is possibe or I need to switch on the LGPLed rxtx.org API

[Willian Mitsuda]

Note that there is no javacomm 3.0 for windows in download page (don't ask me why! I'd like to know too...), so I believe Windows users will be stuck at 2.0 version.

[Trustin Lee]

RXTX is LGPL'd with an exception of linking. I guess RXTX team is using the same license policy with what Hibernate team is using. I think this is gray area yet according to [e-mail]. Let's wait for the ASF board to resolve this issue, and focus on other issues such as JMX integration.

[Trustin Lee]

Rescheduling to release 0.9.1 sooner.

[Cameron Ross]

I would like to use mina to build gateway applications that expose various serial networks used in industrial automation to TCP/IP networks. Is any progress being made on this issue?

Cameron Ross.

[Trustin Lee]

I heard that someone says that RXTX will be dual-licensed. This will enable us to implement serial communication transport type in the future, but not right now. So there's no significant progress yet. One workaround is to launch a TCP/IP proxy server that tunnels a TCP connection to a serial port, then MINA can access the serial port indirectly.

[Julien Vermillard]

A version working with MINA trunk and rxtx.org is on subversion repository on my sandbox : mina/sandbox/jvermillard/serial.
There is a SerialConnector for SerialAdress, wich provide SerialSession (with IDLEness managed).

Feedback are very welcome before starting merging to trunk !

[Julien Vermillard]

Just uploaded as a new module (transport-serial).
It's not building by default (you need to give "-Dwith-serial" to mvn command line), until rxtx libs are uploaded to maven repository.