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Peter B. West wrote: |
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I had hoped this discussion died down by itself, since it has no merit |
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whatsoever. I guess for confuzzled readers, it's time I made something |
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of an "official" statement on the 1.5 issue on behalf of the Java team. |
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> I think you're missing my point. Java 5 works, and is, for practical |
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> purposes, forward compatible with 1,4, with the exception of 'enum'. If |
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> that is so, why not a flag 'java5', that triggers source source 1.4 on |
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> packages that need it? The system JVM is 5, and Bob's your uncle. |
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> What's the system-level stability issue? |
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This issue has been adressed multiple times before, so I won't go into |
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why Java 1.5 is not a drop-in replacement to for 1.4 in the Gentoo |
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package system. |
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> This is not a technical issue, it's an ideological issue, as I said |
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> before. |
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It may be an ideological issue to you, but you are not on the Gentoo |
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Java developer team. I am. I can speak for the Java developer team, and |
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state once and for all that the only reason why Java 1.5 is not |
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unmasked, is because of technical issues that we are still working on. |
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> This is, in fact, quite explicit in the Gentoo documentation. I |
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> suggest that subscribers to the "conspiracy-theory-theory" (I never used |
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> the word) read the "Gentoo social contract" |
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> <http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml>, including the definition |
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> of "free software" <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html>. |
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> |
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> I suggest, further, that the Gentoo folks in this forum come clean about |
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> this when asked in good faith about using Java 5 on Gentoo. The answer |
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> is along these lines: Java 5 will not be supported on Gentoo until a 1.5 |
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> JVM is available under a Stallman-approved licence. |
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Again, as the lead of the Java team, I'll simply state that this is |
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untrue. I should think that we, the developers, have a good idea of our |
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reasons for not putting it in yet. If you hear reasons not coming from |
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us that differ from our stated opinions, it is safe to assume they are |
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invalid. |
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> The genuine options for J5 users are to scrap the Gentoo Java support and |
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> maintain your own Java environment, or to abandon Gentoo. |
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This is known as a "false dichotomy", and is usually used as a bogus |
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rhetorical trick to incite flamewars. In reality, there are many more |
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choices: |
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(3) Use the Axxo overlay |
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(4) Use the Java 1.5 JRE, but not the JDK |
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(5) Help us solve the remaining technical issues |
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I have a hard time seeing how you could have missed these three. |
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> I see that there is yet another enquiry on the list about using J5. Do |
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> that user a favour and tell him why he can't get a supported J5 |
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> environment on Gentoo, so that he can then make informed decisions. If |
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> you guys are embarrassed by the Gentoo ideology, change it or leave. If |
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> not, present it honestly, instead of spouting this deliberately |
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> misleading BS about system stability issues. It's leaving users with |
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> the impression that J5 is unstable, which it patently is not. |
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This is a comment worthy of debian-legal;P |
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Seriously, though, I'd like to reiterate: The problem comes down to |
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manpower, not ideology. |
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Instead of spending your and my time on writing mails on this topic, |
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please help us solve the technical issues. The Gentoo community, as any |
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other open-source community, is dependent on help, input and |
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constructive criticism from our users. |
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Cheers, |
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|
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-- Karl T |
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-- |
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gentoo-java@g.o mailing list |