Default JRE and Java plugin

[Emmanuel Bourg <ebourg@apache.org>]

Hi all,

I'm still rounding the corners for the switch to OpenJDK 8 and there is
a remaining issue regarding the Java plugin. The src:icedtea-web package
provides the icedtea-plugin package which pulls icedtea-7-plugin.
Matthias would like to split src:icedtea-web and have one version per
JRE supported. That would give a src:icedtea-8-web package building
icedtea-8-plugin.

The question is what do we do with the versionless icedtea-plugin
package? It cannot remain in src:icedtea-web since the package will
eventually go away. Since the package basically selects the default
plugin its role could be taken over by src:java-common (the source of
the default-jre/jdk packages).

I see different solutions:

1. Move icedtea-plugin as is to src:java-common and make it select the
default plugin (icedtea-7-plugin now, icedtea-8-plugin after the switch).

2. Move icedtea-plugin to src:java-common and rename it to
default-java-plugin or default-jre-plugin (so if we switch to another
implementation some day we don't have to rename the package).

3. Don't move icedtea-plugin but make default-jre recommends the default
plugin.

4. Solution 1 + make default-jre recommends icedtea-plugin

5. Solution 2 + make default-jre recommends default-java-plugin

I tend to favor the solution 3. With default-jre recommending the plugin
we mimic the behaviour of the Oracle JRE since it includes the plugin by
default, but the weak dependency makes it possible to uninstall the
plugin afterward.

What do you think?

Emmanuel Bourg