[Rxtx] RXTX rebundled (fwd)

[Steffen DETTMER]

Hi!

> I've been thinking about rxtx on and off and wondering what 
> the next step for the library should be.  A new release would 
> satisfy some.  Honestly what I think would help move things 
> forward at this point is a function spec and test suite.  The 
> JSR grandfathering of CommAPI was a real setback.

In short: I deeply agree, especially about func spec (incl. API
definition) and a test suite. Developing a new rxtx major
version top-down seems suited to me due to the huge
complexities in integrational and system testing.



I remember we discussed similar issues years ago at a time I
spent time on rxtx development (Win/Linux only) and several
different more or less impacting change proposals were made by
different people.

When speaking for me, because it was not possible to get fixes
in a new rxtx release and finding myself unable (and unwilling)
to maintain a fork, I decided to use rxtx by somewhat
sophisticated wrappers.

Due to the number of supported platforms, that at least partly
might be difficult to access, the impossible to test drivers
by virtualisation and some other points, maintaining without
dropping support for at least some of them seems to be difficult.

So I think whatever the future of rxtx is, I think it should
start with offering new releases. At first, maybe only
integrating the "proven" fixes, then some minor improvements and
so on. I think it could happen volunteers come back; I could
imagine authors of patches help integrating them, for example
via github, and could development test code for that.



I think when new versions are released regularily, for example
every three months, it could be motivating for people to get
engaged. If good, convincing, fast, simple, easy, reproducible,
well-documented, independent, verbose on errors, tolerant on
non-bugs, covering and so on, people with access especially
to the more "exotic" platforms could run the suites more often.
This, I think, is a vital prerequisite.

What do you think?

oki,

Steffen