Re: Policy change proposal, Re: Bug#176628: sablevm: package incorrctly provides java1-runtime
Hi Ben,
--- Ben Burton <bab@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > I'd like to point out that I wasn't advocating
> that
> > the debian maintainer tracks all VMs available
> for
> > debian all the time. Just that she specifies a
> (i.e.
> > at least one ;) free VM that the application works
> > with in order to be in 'debian-free'.
>
> Mm.. what worries me about this is that if I (say)
> choose Kaffe as my
> working JVM and my package has Depends: kaffe, then
> all other users are
> forced to install kaffe even if my package happens
> to work on most or
> all other JVMs.
>
> Perhaps Depends: kaffe | java1-runtime to show the
> user that I know it
> works on kaffe but to allow a user to install some
> other JVM instead?
That seems logical to me: if you know that your app
works on gcj, kaffe and sablevm, then you'd specify
them explicitely, for the unknown rest you'd use
javaX-runtime, cross your fingers and wait for the bug
reports.
How many bug reports you get will from users of
not-explicitely specified VMs depends on how liberal
the maintainers of these VMs handle javaX-runtime, and
that's probably out of your control. And of course, if
users of a not-explicitely-specified VM contacted you
telling that it all works great, you could add them to
the "officially endorsed" mix. But I guess that's
where that debian java policy thing comes in ;)
The drawback is that it all makes your dependencies
larger, and probably kills most of the benefits
provided by having a purely virtual javax-runtime. On
the other hand, given that the state of things is as
it is, I think it's a good compromise between locking
down users to a single VM that works out of the box,
and implementing all the missing functionality in all
the free VMs out there ;)
I assume (i.e. I don't know, and I don't feel like
digging through years of debian-java archives) that
prior to having a unified javax-runtime, debian has
used a system like that. Why was it changed? Did the
expected benefits materialize?
cheers,
dalibor topic
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