java again really

[Les Mikesell]

Peter Boy wrote:
5.01.2008, 11:53 -0600 schrieb Les Mikesell:
>> Peter Boy wrote:
>>> [snip]
>> But jpackage.org has nothing documented as working on anything newer 
>> than FC6.
>>> [snip]
>> And jpackage.org supplied instructions and rpms for doing this up 
>> through FC6.
>>> [snip]
>> And does not mention F7/F8, although some of the packages might still work.
>>> [snip]
>> Please supply links to the jpackage instructions for F7 or F8.  If  they 
>> exist, I have been unable to find them.  Or if you see java-sun-compat 
>> in this list that fedora packagers are taking over, please point it out: 
>>   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JavaPackagingStatus.
>>
>> I'd like to be wrong about this, but it looks like jpackage.org is no 
>> longer providing current fedora-compatible packages, or at least not 
>> documenting them as such, and unlike some of the other packages that 
>> have been incorporated directly into the fedora repository, 
>> java-sun-compat is clearly missing.  I'm not running anything newer than 
>> FC6 myself (I was waiting for jpackage.org to catch up...) so maybe I've 
>> overlooked something.
> 
> Les, with honesty and without offending you: If you look over the above
> lines, a compressed view of your last post (and try the same with your
> previus posts), you might notice that you are continously claiming from
> others to work in their leisure time to support your needs or wishes,
> and you are doing that in a non-constructive, uninspiring way and not
> respecting other's work. Open Source development doesn't work that way.

I don't equate the fedora distribution with "Open Source development" 
which typically is distribution-agnostic and accommodates differences. 
Pre-fedora RedHat might have been largely a collaboration of people 
working at their own leisure, making community decisions and 
collaborating with outside resources. Fedora now exists to serve the Red 
Hat company agenda and no longer seems interested in cooperating with 
any outside resources that previously were useful to their users.  And 
it is in Red Hat's interest to keep the fedora distribution from being 
usable enough to compete with their commercial offering.

> If you are missing documentation at jpackage.org, offer your help and
> your leisure time to improve it.

What would such documentation say? "Sorry, fedora took their ball and 
went home - we'd like to help but can't any more"?  Pretty much like the 
other 3rd party repositories that were previously usable but now have 
predictable conflicts with incompatible and less complete fedora-managed 
versions.

> And from your postings I conclude that you would better switch to a
> distribution which is dedicated to run out of the box, e.g. Ubuntu,
> CentOS and perhaps SuSE.

Like I said before, I haven't installed a fedora since FC6 - but until 
recently I thought I was just waiting for the outside resources I need 
to catch up.  CentOS is fine, but unlike the commercial RHEL version 
that actually solves the fedora-specific problem that spawned this whole 
thread, CentOS does not supply a copy of Sun java.

> I give up

Does that mean you actually like a distribution that doesn't work out of 
the box and is actively working to reduce it's cooperation with the 
outside resources that supply the things it needs to work?  I don't see 
much choice but to change to Ubuntu or one of the others as soon as I 
become paranoid about the end of security updates on my FC6 boxes. 
There's just a lot of baggage related to installation and administration 
tools that goes with a distribution switch and I hate to give up what 
I've learned from experience back to RH4.x versions.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com