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.
Peter
You guys are both wrong. Fedora does ship F7 and F8 with a small
java version 1.5 which is too old for newer java programs, and that
broken icedtea that does nothing good. But light at the end of the
tunnel. Fedora can make the necessary changes to their design to allow
the method given on the Sun Site to work. I have been doing the work.
Look at my new messages on java.
Karl
--
Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.
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