Re: OpenOffice v2.0 java dependency
mandag 28 mars 2005, 15:31, skrev Gavin McCullagh:
> Presumably debian-edu will not want to ship a java reliant
> OpenOffice? I seem to recall though that Skolelinux ships or shipped
> a JRE?
mandag 28 mars 2005, 15:31, skrev Gavin McCullagh:
> Presumably debian-edu will not want to ship a java reliant
> OpenOffice? I seem to recall though that Skolelinux ships or
> shipped a JRE?
We will ship the OpenOffice version buildt in the Debian community in
future releases of Skolelinux. It's a whole lot of maintainability
issues that are sorted out in a better way then to build our own
OpenOffice - as we did't with OpenOffice in Skolelinux 1.0. We are
also shipping j2re1.4 with permission from Sun Microsystems. There are
for other reasons than a currently need for java in OpenOffice. It's
the use of java applets in some browser applications that the pupils
use when doing different work in their classes.
It could be some use of jre (Java Runtime Environment) in OpenOffice
2.0. The new database MS Access-like frontend written in Java could
more easily replace the use of Access in a minor course in the
secoundary school. The pupils are learning some simple use of a
datebase-application integrated with an office-application. But
fortunately there are other approaches. You can easily integrate MySQL
with OpenOffice, create tables in a gui-tool[1], and use OpenOffice to
manipulate data, expand tables and make queries, as the this[2][3]
screenshots shows:
[1] http://www.knoda.org/
[2] http://ingrid.bitnexus.net/OOo/Kapittel4.html
[3] http://hk-classes.sourceforge.net/screenshot.html
The overall strategy that is agreed upon is to convert to a free
Java Runtime Environment when it's stable enough. The timeframe on
this could be:
-- In short term we still will ship the proprietary jre from Sun on
the downloadable Skolelinux-ISO or with apt-get to the Skolelinux
apt repository. Hopefully the OpenOffice 2.0 developers has
integrated the Java support as a independent component, so that de
Debian maintainers don't need to hardcode exclusion of Java. AFAIK
it's posible to integrate the Java-dependencies in a way that makes
the OpenOffice functionality as an "independent" packages. Then the
people that need proprietary Java could just plug it in.
-- In a short and meedium term people that uses Java also should
contribute to the Java GNU classpath proeject[4]. There are enough
developers out there[5][6] who uses free software in their
production change that also uses Java as their main programming
plattform. They schould contribute, as Richard Stallmand has urged.
[4] http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/
[5] http://www.dedasys.com/articles/language_popularity.html
[6] http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm
-- In a meedium to a long term, we should include the Free Java[7] as
the standard jre in Skolelinux. Some of this work are still in
exprimental, and we need a more stable versions of the
software. The teachers and the persons who operates a
Skolelinux-network don't have the time to support unstable
software. To introduce an exprimental jre is not an option for
a running operations with 2700 to 17000 users and 6000
terminals :-)
[7] http://java.debian.net/index.php/DebianSupportsFreeJava
Some exprimental testing has been done to see if the Free Java works in
a browser with Java-applets. It does, and it's really fast. Sometimes
20 times faster than standard Java from Sun. So the future could be
bright - but it also has to be stable ;-)
- Knut Yrvin
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