Re: The evils of /usr/share/java/repository

[Ben Burton <bburton@mail.math.okstate.edu>]

> My mistake; only java.* works. If you want other jars to be considered
> "standard", put them in $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext/. This is a
> platform-independent equivalent of what you're proposing.

But not JVM-independent.  Bear in mind that we need a solution that works
for all JVMs out there, including kaffe, orp, etc.

> The equivalent of -nostdinc in Java is 'unset CLASSPATH'. It is not
> possible with your proposal. That's half of my complaint; if you do it
> in /usr/bin/java, it cannot be overridden. I'd be much happier if it
> happened in /etc/profile, where at least it's visible and overridable by
> users.

Putting things in /etc/profile is dangerous because not everyone uses
bash.

>From debian policy 10.9:

"A program must not depend on environment variables to get reasonable
defaults. (That's because these environment variables would have to be set
in a system-wide configuration file like /etc/profile, which is not
supported by all shells.)"

I would argue all classpath manipulation should be done in JVM/compiler
startup scripts and Java application startup scripts.

Jython is done this way; the jython wrapper adds in the servlet jar and
the editline wrapper jar, then the JVM script adds in the bootstrap
classes and off we go.

Ben.