On 27.05.2015 11:41, Rene Engelhard wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 05:45:46PM +0200, Emmanuel Bourg wrote: >> Le 26/05/2015 16:52, Rene Engelhard a écrit : >> >>> I think we should decide what our Java baseline is and how it affects >>> release archs_before_ changing this. I think changing the Lintian warning does not affect the current Java situation on ports where GCJ is the default JDK. The bug report is a mere request to sync Lintian with reality again. Most people will just override the tag or ignore it because they have no other choice. Newer applications and libraries will introduce new Java features. The answer to that is to move with the times and to present Debian as a modern operating system which still cares about backwards compatibility. Niels and Emmanuel have already pointed out the most important facts why we can't support GCJ forever. My Java baseline is: * Everyone should try to use the defaults and compile to Java 1.5 bytecode whenever possible. Some packages even work with Java 1.3 like cup. Don't frivolously change that as long as the package works as expected with OpenJDK. * We should communicate loud and clearly that all architectures where OpenJDK is not the default JDK are no primary Java platforms. Applications and libraries may be broken. There are already a number of packages which are and this number will increase over time. Java should be treated as experimental there. I don't believe this issue can be solved on a distribution level. Either a miracle happens and GCJ will be revived or someone has to port OpenJDK to that platform, which seems to be the only viable and reasonable alternative. It is easier than to convince every Java developer out there to support GCJ. * Ensure that packages can be backported to the current stable release, so that they work with the default OpenJDK. Hence my request to change the Lintian warning because Java 1.7 is supported in stable. Regards, Markus
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