[fedora-java] Jonas vs JTA

[David Walluck]

Bryce McKinlay <mckinlay at redhat.com> wrote:

> It seems that libgcj is wrong to include JTA in the core class
> libraries. Previous J2SE versions may have included all of
> javax.transaction, but the current specs for 1.4.2 and 1.5 show that the
> J2SE now only includes a few exceptions, which are required by CORBA.

It depends what you're going for. I would prefer it if GNU Classpath had
branches such that features specific to 1.5 would be put in a separate branch.

This isn't the first time a problem like this has occured. For example, if you
look at the XML classes, they are compatible with 1.5 (I don't know if
1.4-compatible classes exist). This creates compatibility issues for things
that are supposed to work with a 1.4 jdk. What I have ended up doing is using
xerces for the XML classes instead.

The current consensus with Classpath developers seems to be to include 
the whole
kitchen sink. In my opinion, it should include all and only what a real 
jdk 1.4
provides and then provide a separate branch or external package for 
other apis.

The problem we have with the XML (and maybe JTA) is that classpath is 
providing
too much functionality or functionality of a spec whose version differs from
the one that is included in the Sun jdk. To me this is worse than not 
including
it at all because it cuases conflicts when trying to build things if we have a
hybrid 1.3/1.4/1.5 jdk all rolled into one.

> Further, this creates difficulties testing FC's Jonas with other
> jpackaged JVMs because they require a separate jta.jar.

What are the difficulties? `build-classpath jta` should return the correct jar
even though the actual jar returned may differ based on jvm version. The whole
way it is set up is to allow things like this to co-exist peacefully (i.e.,
some jvm's may have jta included and provide jta while others will require an
external jta package to satisfy the dependency). Note that this is separate
from the question as to whether Classpath should ship with jta or not. I just
want to be sure that there isn't a packaging bug in the jvm.

-- 
Sincerely,

David Walluck
<david at zarb.org>

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