Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Riyad Kalla <rsk@×××××××××.edu>
To: absinthe@g.o, gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: RE: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it?
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 16:40:00
Message-Id: 000501c31eee$79308ae0$d628c480@rskwork
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it? by Dylan Carlson
1 I agree with your reasoning. I support the cutting of the JRE (actually
2 I don't think I've downloaded the JRE since 1.2)
3
4 -Riyad
5
6 -----Original Message-----
7 From: Dylan Carlson [mailto:absinthe@g.o]
8 Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 8:49 PM
9 To: gentoo-dev@g.o
10 Subject: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it?
11
12
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15
16 Greetings,
17
18 This is not an RFC, per se, but I am posting this with the general
19 purpose of soliciting discussion. This might be a controversial
20 subject, so I think it warrants some conversation before it reaches the
21 level of an RFC.
22
23 I have talked with a couple of people the idea of dropping JRE support
24 in Gentoo. The reasons this idea came about:
25
26 1. Gentoo is a source-based distribution. We have Java-based packages
27 that build from source for the same reason that have C packages that
28 build from source. Yet, it's unthinkable to have a system without a C
29 compiler. Thus it should be almost as unthinkable to have a system
30 without a Java compiler.
31
32 2. Few people actually use a JRE inside of Gentoo for the above reason
33 (if
34 any) ... yet of course reliable statistics on this are not available.
35 Furthermore, some packages require a JDK to run, namely servlet engines,
36 development environments, and rare apps that depend on the JDK without
37 actually compiling/debugging anything.
38
39 3. Jikes will compile most things, but not everything. Furthermore,
40 Jikes lacks a javadoc tool, among other things. So it's not suitable to
41 have a JRE + Jikes combination, though in theory that might be possible
42 someday.
43
44
45 User impact to the above idea:
46
47 1. Download & install size: Using 1.4 as our example, JRE's are about
48 a
49 22MB download. JDKs are about 42MB. It's also safe to assume that the
50 JDKs also occupy roughly twice the disk space, though I don't have
51 specifics on it for this email.
52
53 2. Reduced complexity in java-config(1), simplifies the nature of Java
54 ebuilds for both Gentoo developers and users submitting ebuilds alike.
55
56 3. Reduced QA burden.
57
58 I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
59
60 Cheers,
61 Dylan Carlson
62
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