Re: FLOSS and servlets: recommendations
On Sunday 06 August 2006 21:45, MrDemeanour wrote:
> Andrew Vaughan wrote:
> >
> > In Sarge, Tomcat4 shipped in contrib.
> > http://wiki.debian.org/Java/ShouldGoToMain states "Works with Kaffe
> > 1.1.3 but need non-free JDK to compile (com.sun.* classes)"
>
> I've seen that page; I couldn't find a timestamp on it, but it looked
> old-ish.
Kaffe 1.1.3 was in unstable jan/feb 2004, so that comment was probably
written around that time. Whilst the comment is old, it probably still
applies to the version of tomcat4 in sarge.
> Anyway, Tomcat 4 is deprecated on the Apache site. Maintenance
> now occurs on Tomcat 5.
Debian seems to be following suit. Tomcat4 has been removed from testing
and unstable.
> I'd prefer to revert to Tomcat 4 - I don't like
> the new logging arrangements in Tomcat 5 - but 5 is where development is
> happening, and I guess that any Tomcat appearance in Sarge/main is going
> to be 5.
Debian stable is uh, stable. Except for security bugs or other serious
bugs, it doesn't get updated.
>
> > This build dependency on non-free software means Tomcat4 couldn't go
> > to main, and had to go to contrib.
> >
> > This appears to have been fixed with Tomcat5. Tomcat5 is in main in
> > Etch and Sid and Tomcat5.5 is in main in experimental.
>
> OK, thanks. I'd like to stick with Sarge, but if I want to use
> main/Tomcat, then I need a Sid or Etch system.
If you prefer tomcat4, why not just use the packages in contrib. Everything
in contrib is supposed to be free software. It just has build and/or
runtime dependencies on non-free software.
If you want to use debian's Tomcat5 packages, then a quick look at the
dependencies suggest that a mixed sarge/etch system is probably ok iff
you're prepared to run a Sun/IBM jre/jdk. You could also create an etch
chroot and run Tomcat from there.
>
> Is there some place I can keep up-to-date on what is going on with
> Tomcat 5.5 in Etch?
>
You could subscribe to the individual packages at
http://packages.qa.debian.org/t/tomcat5.html
http://packages.qa.debian.org/t/tomcat5.5.html
See
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html#s-pkg-tracking-system
for further info.
> >> I know how to install Sun Java and Tomcat on a Debian system; but
> >> as I say, I'm using only main, and I don't want to start bringing
> >> in non-free or contrib material, for reasons related to maintenance
> >> and stability, as well as to politics. So what is the best servlet
> >> container that is consistent with the use of the main repository?
> >> Why is there no comment on this in the Debian-Java FAQ?
> >
> > Hopefully someone using java servlets can answer this one.
>
> Yes. I think I understand why jserv might not appear, but I don't know
> why Jetty is absent. Can Jetty also not be built using free tools? It
> seems that Jetty is available as a commercial product, so I wonder if
> Jetty is partially encumbered with licensing problems? Or build
> problems, like Tomcat was, maybe?
Jetty is in contrib (unstable only). A quick look shows no obvious reason
why it couldn't be moved to main, so it may still be in contrib purely
because no-ones gotten around to moving it. (It build-depends on ant,
which was in contrib when Jetty was first uploaded.)
<snip>
> I'm still at a loss to understand why it's so hard to find pages on the
> web that deal with the state of servlets on free operating systems, and
> are also up-to-date.
Both of the following google queries turn up over 10 pages of results.
Whether they're any good is of course another matter.
http://www.google.com/search?q=tomcat+debian
http://www.google.com/search?q=tomcat+linux
> The impression I have is that people who run
> servlets on Debian today don't really care too much about freeness. They
> all seem to be using Sun runtimes. But I haven't been searching on
> "Fedora servlets" - perhaps FC5 is the way to go. Seems a shame.
I suspect that many of people hosting commercial apps are probably running
on top of Sun's/IBM's jre/jdk, mainly because Sun's jre/jdk is the
implementation that things tend to be tested/certified against. (And in
the commercial hosting world, where downtime equals dollars, that matters).
A good place to ask is probably somewhere the J2EE developers hang out, eg
the javalobby.org forums.
>
> But I'd sooner do it with Debian/Sarge/main, even if that means I can't
> use Tomcat. And I don't mind participating in a testing effort. It's not
> a commercial project that I'm doing, after all.
Testing is always welcome, but there is little point testing sarge, since
sarge is stable, and only serious bugs will be fixed.
HTH
Andrew
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