Re: [Debian-java] Lending a hand

[Michael Koch <konqueror@gmx.de>]

On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 02:44:17PM +0100, Vincent Fourmond wrote:
> Michael Koch wrote:
> > Welcome in the team. It's nice to have you in the team.
> 
>   Thanks ;-)
> 
> > Please note that batik is a not so simple package. Its tied to its
> > rdepends. Please keep that in mind. Also its in contrib. We should move
> > it to main if possible at all. This needs to be done with care, as most
> > java packages miss features when built with certain runtimes.
> 
>   Thanks for the warning. Then, maybe I could simply add manual pages to
> the current version and patch it so the programs work ? That should not
> break anything, if I respect Build-deps for building, should it ?

Yes, thats a good start for the package.

>   By the way, about contrib/main, I've just written a small perl script
> based on a package currently in NEW (jclassinfo, I'll make it
> team-maintained in a minute) that is able to find out the classes
> required by a given jar file and find the jar files it should depend on.
>  That could make an appreciable step towards the construction of a
> dh_java tool -- and that also could be very useful for the contrib/main
> transition by allowing to:
> 
>   * see if the classes requirements of a built archive depends on the
> build environment (most probably meaning that features are missing when
> building with a free JDK)
>   * see if the free Java machines actually have the classes required by
> something in contrib, that could therefore be move to main.

We will have to see. I have some doubts this can work in a reliable way
in todays Java world.

>   I'll write more about this when the package has made its way through
> NEW (as it is but useless now if no one can test it). It might then be
> meaningful to create a java-pkg-tools with this and other tools to help
> make the transition.

Thanks for your efforts.


Cheers,
Michael