Re: [PROPOSAL] 4. RfD for a new debian java policy

[Ben Burton <bab@debian.org>]

> >> and will let the user choose one default VM, which will be used,
> >> when it is include in your list of 'known working VMs'.
> >Rightio.
> 
> I take that as an agreement?

Not necessarily, just an understanding of what you mean.  I'm still
uncomfortable with using a hand-rolled system here where we have debian
alternatives for everything else.

If all you want is for the user to specify a "default JVM", then why not
just let this default JVM be the alternative /usr/bin/java, just like it
is now?  This is consistent with everything else debian, and presumably
the startup script (or the findjava script if its use is mandated) can
do something like:

  if user has explicitly specified a JVM to use
    use it;
  else if follow-symlink-from-/usr/bin/java is in the known working JVM list
    use it;
  else for i in known-working-JVMs;
    try it;
  else
    warn the user and use /usr/bin/java anyway;

This has all the properties that we want - the list of known JVMs is
honoured, the user can specify a JVM for this run only, and the user can
set a default JVM as /usr/bin/java which is only used by default if it's
known to work.  At yet it's still consistent with the general debian
structure and so there's less for sysadmins to learn (because let's face
it, people rarely read documentation until something actually breaks).
  
> I've changed the words in both cases to 'should state it in the
> manpage and may state it at runtime'.

This makes me happy.

> IMO, this *should* be in the manpage.

I agree.  I only wanted "may" for runtime output.

> I'm not happy with the words though, they sound really
> 'constructed' to me :/

Don't worry about that - I'm happy to put technical correctness
ahead of sparking English wordplay, at least for starters. :)

b.