Re: [ANN] New version of j2se-package (formerly mpkg-j2sdk)
On Tue, 2003-10-28 at 13:30, Stefan Gybas wrote:
> Jan Schulz wrote:
>
> > Installer depend on unfree software and therefor at least must go into
> > contrib. There was some discussion, whether they should altogether go
> > to non-free. See debian-devel for that.
>
> That't true for packages that only consist of an installer. However, I
> don't see a reason in Policy which forbids the inclusion of an installer
> into a packages in main if this packages also includes other programs.
> For example, alien also includes (now outdated) special treatment for
> Sun's JDK RPM packages.
It's more about a common sense, I think. It doesn't matter much whether
it's a part of java-common or a self standing package. The same rules
apply.
If there's actually some good usage for this piece of code besides being
used to install non-free stuff - it shall go to main (and thus can go
into java-common also).
If not (and apparently all interesting free JVMs are already packaged,
so I trust that this is the case) - then the code is only usable for
installation of non-free stuff and from practical POV - it's not hard
to put it into a separate package - so it can't/shouldn't be in main
and thus java-common.
I have nothing against people wanting to be able to just get their
work done effectively and with current state of free JVMs and their
libraries - it's quite often the only solution - to install non-free
JVM.
However I belive that the main section has been created exactly to
separate word of free software (as DFSG defines it) from other software.
So if a particular piece of software is dependant on non-free software
to be useful - it cannot go to main.
See 2.2.1 section of Debian Policy
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html
[...] packages in main:
* must not require a package outside of main for compilation or
execution [...]
Furthermore 2.2.2 says:
Examples of packages which would be included in contrib or
non-US/contrib are:
* free packages which require contrib, non-free packages or packages
which are not in our archive at all for compilation or execution, and
* wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for non-free
programs.
So I belive that's probably where these scripts belong (if not in
non-free even - which may be the case according to last -devel
discussions).
Cheers,
Grzegorz B. Prokopski
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