packaging jars vs. classes
I've been thinking about the way debian java packages are built. For
example, libxerces-java and ant are both distributed as jar files
which wind up in /usr/share/java and some documentation which goes in
/usr/share/doc/<package-name>. According to the java policy, debian
java packages can be distributed as jar files or class files in the
/usr/share/java/repository. There's also a proposed change to simply
place classes in the correct hierarchy in /usr/share/java.
After some reflection it seems that it would make more sense to just
copy the class files in /usr/share/java so setting the classpath for
standard packages would be handled once by setting
CLASSPATH=/usr/share/java once instead of having to tack on new jar
file to the classpath every time a new package is installed. It
certainly wouldn't make sense to have to mention each individual
executable that gets installed into the path, so why do we do it for
java?
I'd like to hear other opinions.
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