Re: Java policy: finding the base directory of the default JRE/JDK

[Shyamal Prasad <shyamalprasad@verizon.net>]

    Barry> Shyamal Prasad wrote:

    >| I just noticed that both JDE versions in Debian (jde and
    >| xemacs21-basesupport) are partially broken: if you don't set
    >| JAVA_HOME (which is not allowed by Debian policy) some of the
    >| most useful tools don't work.

    Barry> This is news to me; do you have a quick link to the policy
    Barry> section that covers this?

Hi,

I guess I sounded more alarmist than I intended ;-)

Debian executables "must not depend on environment variables to get
reasonable defaults" is the actual statement.

Ch 9.9 of Policy: 
  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html
Ch 2.3 of Java Policy: 
  http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/java-policy/x86.html

    Barry> I have a hard time imagining why setting JAVA_HOME would be
    Barry> against policy and how that is to be worked around, since
    Barry> most J2EE app servers request that JAVA_HOME be set and a
    Barry> number of tools also require this.  It's not that I doubt
    Barry> it; I just need to read up on it, and if you have a quick
    Barry> link I'd appreciate it.

You can't require that a user sets JAVA_HOME for a default
installation of a java application to run in a reasonable
manner. That's all. As some one who has lived in csh hell I *love*
this policy.

In my specific case, if JAVA_HOME is not set then the Emacs packages
for JDEE currently don't work reasonably.

Cheers!
Shyamal