Policy ideas (Was: Re: java2-runtime)
Charles Fry <debian <at> frogcircus.org> writes:
>
> Does this mean that bugs should be filed with packages which provide or
> depend on java-runtime (I noticed a few)?
>
> Should bugs be filed with kaffe, which as Peter pointed out does not
> provide any java runtime?
>
> Is there any reason why java1-runtime and java2-runtime are the official
> runtimes, whereas java-compiler and java2-compiler are the official
> compilers? This inconsistency does not seem helpful in establishing
> consistency within the runtimes.
Yeah, I think the policy should be consolidated, since java 1.1 is (for all I
know) not packaged or availiable in Debian. Java-package supports nonfree
runtimes starting from 1.3 and above. I assume that most of the software
packaged in Debian these days will require a pretty modern runtime anyway.
So, I'd suggest that the java(X)-runtime virtuals are removed in favour of a
general "j-word-runtime" virtual to be provided by all runtimes capable of
running programms written in the Java programming language.
I propose using "j-word" instead of "java", because that is a time-honoured way
of abbreviating four letter words that can not be said freely in English.[1]
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] As Sun Microsystems holds and and actively defends their Java(TM) trade
mark, I would not recommend calling Kaffe a Java(TM) runtime, because, frankly,
according to Sun Microsystem's rules for the usage of the trade mark, it is not
a Java(TM) runtime.
And that's fine by me, I don't feel that trying to rub off Sun's trade mark
investment is a fair thing to do.[2] You can see on the kaffe.org web site how
the Kaffe project tries to draw a clear line between Kaffe and Sun Microsystem's
implementation. In order to avoid confusing people who dearly want the "Java(TM)
Desktop System" GNU/Linux distribution, for example, rather than a free software
runtime environment for programms written in the Java programming language (that
is a safe use of the term "Java", btw. ;).
[2] Just like I don't feel that Sun Microsystems attempts to market some of
their clearly proprietary software as Open Source are a fine thing to do, like
they tried to do with Java3D or JAI. See my comment at
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/editors/archives/2005/02/working_with_th.html for a
reference.
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