On Thursday 03 January 2008, Peter Boy wrote: >Am Sonntag, den 30.12.2007, 12:49 -0600 schrieb Les Mikesell: >> It would be better if you tried to understand the consequences of this >> choice instead of blindly defending it. > >As with most decisions in real life: most benefits in one dimension have >drawbacks in others. If I want the freedom of free software, I may have >to struggle with issues in using non-free software. It is simply a >matter of choice (and conscious decision). > >> > Fedora did not choose "not to be compatible with..." but Fedora choosed >> > not to include an non-free program (i.e. Sun's Java) >> >> They did both. Including or not including isn't the issue. Making it >> difficult for the user to install his own freely available copy is one >> problem. > >Fedora does not make it specifically difficult. You may install the Sun >provided Linux rpm, are free to search the Sun bugzilla database why it >doesn't work out of the box (doesn't work in any Linux distribution, the >bug report is some years old and Sun choosed not to fix it), install one >of the suggested workarounds (e.g. edit a shell script >in /etc/profile.d) and you are ready to go. As with any distributions >Fedora does only care about software, which is part of its distribution. >Third party vendors have to care ybout their software. > >And don't confuse the Fedora model with RHEL. In RHEL Red Hat takes care >about Sun java integration and customers have to pay for it. Or the >former SuSE distribution where SuSE made a different regarding the >licence issue. > >> A whole separate 'jpackage' project has to exist just to fix >> this problem in the distribution. The problem wouldn't exist if the >> distribution included a java-*-sun-compat package of perfectly legal >> symlinks. > >You may think of the jpackage distribution as just another workaround >for the fact that Sun didn't care about Linux compatibility of their >Linus rpm's. And it is a general purpose workaround, not a Fedora >specific one. > >> The bigger problem is distributing something that is not java compatable >> but executing it with the java name. Microsoft tried to promote an >> incompatible program that similarly fit their agenda with the java name >> and Sun successfully sued them over it. The fedora-shipped not-java >> program that executes with the java name does just as much damage and >> shouldn't be named java until it passes the compatibility tests. I'm >> surprised fedora's legal dept. allowed this abuse of a trademarked name. > >The software is not shipped as java, but as gcj (and with some starter >scripts with the filenama java for compatibility). And in contrast to MS >the gcj project aimed to full compatibility and the lack thereof was an >intermediate state during development. All this is quite different. > >> > So you can develope (or simply run) against the reference version and >> > you can test (and support the devel of) the truly free alternative in >> > parallel. That's the Fedora way. >> >> It's not an alternative java until it passes the compatibility test. > >You are free, not to use (and just to ignore) it! Remember, you just >have to use one of the above mentioned alternative ways. Here, with a fresh install of x86_64 on my lappy, an about:plugins gives a long list of IcedTea stuff. So I sent FF off to http://www.cnn.com. Clicking on the first video in the list, it said I needed flash, so I clicked on the download button. Then I became root and installed it, and restarted FF. It was there in the about list, so I went back to cnn.com and they all played just fine. Now, this thread was saying what about IcedTea? >Peter -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark.
