Fedora and Java - just give us the facts

Ian Malone ibmalone at gmail.com
Thu Aug 16 12:38:26 UTC 2007


On 16/08/07, Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
> RavenOak wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 2007-08-12 at 10:49 -0600, Charles Curley wrote:
> >
> >> You may also want to look at http://jpackage.org/.
> >
> > If anyone goes this route, I strongly suggest picking and choosing from
> > JPackage and not having the repository enabled all the time.  In my
> > experience it has been a pain, and seems like the atmosphere is "it's
> > their problem" from both sides (although I'm sure that is too
> > cut-and-dry to be accurate).
>
> I agree completely.
> I followed the jpackage advice briefly,
> and did not find it satisfactory.
>

I've been using the JPackage approach since FC5 (maybe 3),
when I found that using the Sun binary didn't really give me
a working Java.  It's getting a bit bit-rotten though as people
get ready to move over to the new license.  I don't use their
repository though, just the nosrc RPM to install Java such
that it doesn't break my system.

> I've gone over to Sun Java;
> maybe when Fedora move over to Sun's open Java I'll transfer to that.
>
> I still find the Fedora documentation slightly misleading.
> It would be more honest, IMHO, to say something like,
> "If you want to use Java, you will probably find Sun's Java RPMs
> the simplest and most satisfactory solution.
> However, we don't use this because we don't like Sun's old licence;
> so we have set up an alternative system which you will get
> if you opt for Java Development in Fedora."
>

I agree that there's no reason in this case to stop them pointing
at Sun's Java, but change "We don't like Sun's old licence," to
"Sun's old licence doesn't allow us to distribute it."

> I'm allergic to discussions about licences,
> and happy to use anything that works.
> I suspect that is the philosophy of the vast majority
> of Fedora users.
>

I would prefer it if they didn't get sued out of business for
blatantly ignoring the license.




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