Re: Question about java-virtual-machine
W liście z pon, 30-08-2004, godz. 18:16, Arnaud Vandyck pisze:
> > Here's the question: should ikvm provide
> > java-virtual-machine or not?
>
> I'd like to say yes. So I second it.
First let me welcome next free JVM in Debian! :-)
And now to the business...
Not sure it's a good idea. Given that the "java-virtual-machine"
dependency was created to accomodate the properties shared among
the JVMs and that most of JVMs, in general, is capable of running
JNI code, running a JNI code is kind of expected from a package
that provides "java-virtual-machine".
Additionaly there's no automatic or even semi-automatic way to
ensure that ikvm won't be used to run some java code using JNI
libraries. This is bad as there is plenty of java libs that
contain some (usually minimal) native part. The best that can
be done is to go case-by-case and add " | ikvm" do Depends: of
these packages that can be effectively run with it.
Otherwise we risk confusion similar to that, when SableVM started
to Provide: java2-runtime and somebody apt-get'ed ArgoUML, which
requires advanced Swing to work. Theorhetically SableVM, same as
some other free JVMs, should be entitled to provde java2-runtime
(see bug #238768 for reference), but for practical reasons it does
not do that, as it would render Depends: of many packages useless.
I hope you see the analogy.
Cheers,
Grzegorz B. Prokopski
PS: When Sarge is finally released shouldn't we think about
renaming java-runtime to something like free-java-runtime and
java2-runtime to something like non-free-java-runtime?
OR to clearly document that java-runtime actually means "free runtime"
and java2-runtime actually means "non-free runtime"?
--
Grzegorz B. Prokopski <gadek@debian.org>
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org
SableVM - LGPL'ed Java VM http://www.sablevm.org
Why SableVM ?!? http://devel.sablevm.org/wiki/Features
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