Open Runtime Platform
OPEN SOURCE DYNAMIC COMPUTING RESEARCH PLATFORM


A platform for bytecode system research


To date, an open source research platform that allows interchangeable modules implementing Just-In-Time compilers (JITs) and Garbage Collection (GC) has not been available to the academic research community. ORP (Open Runtime Platform) is an open source research infrastructure project that provides these features thus enabling the rapid evolution of systems research of dynamic compilation and memory management.

ORP implements advanced JIT and GC interfaces. These interfaces allow the JIT, GC and remaining runtime system to be developed in complete isolation and at independent rates. A major benefit is that JIT and GC researchers are relieved of the intractable task of developing a full system before they can innovate in their area of expertise.

Initially ORP interoperates with GNU Classpath. More info is at: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/classpath.html.
GNU Classpath is an open source library for the Java* language.

Current ORP source code compiles and runs on IA32 Linux and IA32 Windows 2000. Future updates will include JITs and GCs for IA64. GNU Make makefiles are included for Linux builds. Microsoft VC++ 5.0 project files are included for the Windows 2000 build.

You can subscribe to a mailing list for ORP users and view its archives at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orp

Application Performance

The basic system incorporates a fast code generating JIT as well as an optimizing JIT. It also includes several GC algorithms, ranging from a simple mark-sweep algorithm to an advanced train algorithm. MRL academic papers on these topics are listed at: http://www.intel.com/research/mrl/library/java-pubs.htm.

Download

Intel invites the academic and open source communities to participate in the evolution of these technologies. ORP source code can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/orp.

Source code contributions

Small code fragments can be submitted through our web interface at Open Runtime Platform Feedback. The ORP distribution contains instructions for submitting more significant code contributions.


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