Re: About java virtual dependencies and provides and the Java

[Michael Koch <konqueror@gmx.de>]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 11:06:22AM +0200, Eric Lavarde - Debian wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Michael Koch said:
> > On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 11:17:13PM +0100, Matthew Johnson wrote:
> >> On Wed May 21 22:06, Michael Koch wrote:
> >>
> >> > Debian supports only Java 5+ compatible runtimes in unstable.
> >>
> >> Almost compatible
> >>
> >> http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35020 (amongst others)
> >
> > Thats a small bug that doesn't change the whole picture.
> But is really the whole picture that many java programs don't need to rely
> on Sun's (or other certified) JRE to work properly? I try at regular
> intervals and FreeMind and SimplyHTML still don't work properly with GCI;
> we read recently that there were issues with Azureus.
> So, I still think that we need to make the difference between free and
> complete implementations, and the original issue, which wasn't answered,
> is that the Java policy needs to be updated, and packages be adapted, best
> before complete freeze.

I really think its much too late to make policy changes now and directly
apply them. The changes needed are just too big and too much for the
resources we have.

We need to tackle this in the beginning of the lenny+1 release cycle.


Cheers,
Michael