Re: Autoupdate of java application downloads external libraries
On Thursday 29 January 2009 15:22:06 Alexander Block wrote:
> Hello mentors,
Hi,
> I'm currently packaging the application jDownloader which requires very
> frequent updates. The mainstream devs have solved the updating with an
> auto-update feature that checks for new versions of the core part and
> plugins. As I understand, this is absolutely ok as other applications
> (like Iceweasel) do the same for their plugins. The problem now is, that
> the auto updater also updates some internally used java libraries which
> are also available in the debian archives. For example, the application
> depends on libswingx, but instead of using the system wide installation
> it uses a local version that is retrieved with the auto updater.
>
> Now my question is: Is this ok for Debian? Is it ok to ignore installed
> libraries and use local versions instead? Also, is it generally ok if an
> application is able to update it's own core (not only plugins)?
A more important question would be:
`is this ok with you as a Debian package maintainer and your debian users to
have such a package in Debian'.
How are you supposed to track the versions of the stuff installed and being
unpredictably upgraded in the users' $HOME?
How are the users supposed to report versions of that local stuff in case of
problems? How is the release and security team supposed to deal with these?
Are you willing to support all available combinations of $system and $home
stuff and deal with unreproducible and hard to detect bug, which is
unevitable to hit Debian's BTS?
> I really would like to change the source so that it uses the installed
> libraries instead. But the problem is that the auto update process may
> add/remove/change dependencies and I don't see a way to handle that.
>
> Btw, the auto updater is absolutely required. jDownloader is based on a
> lot of plugins which are for example responsible for link extraction
> from external sites. Everytime one site changes something, an update is
> required to make the plugin work again.
If their auto-update service is so deeply clinched into their core and so
self-supported, then why on earth you need all these potential troubles with
such a `pseudo' debian package; yes `pseudo', since a great part of it would
never meet the debian archive. Why should the Debian archive be involved in
that case?
A better approach (IMNSHO) is to leave all that trouble to the authors of that
piece of code and their bug tracking system. Sooner or later they would
understand that ignoring the reality and the surrounding environment just
because it is far easier to do so is not as safer as it seems to be.
--
pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 <people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu>
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