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Greg Tassone wrote: |
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> On Wed, 2005-11-30 at 22:39 +0000, Peter B. West wrote: |
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> |
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>>Joshua Nichols wrote: |
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>> |
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>>>>So who wants to run a 1.4 JDK? And what, exactly, prevents anything |
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>>> |
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>>>>from being compiled under 1.5? The only thing I can think of is the |
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>>> |
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>>>>user of the newly reserved word 'enum'. Big deal. How long has 1.5 |
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>>>>been around now? |
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>>> |
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>>>Have you actually tried using a 1.5 JDK to emerge your system? I'm |
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>>>guessing not, because xerces, xalan, and dom4j won't compile with 1.5, |
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>>>and they are pretty critical XML libraries that lots of things use. |
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>>> |
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>> |
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>>See my response to the "ant won't compile" message. Same story, at |
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>>least partially. |
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>> |
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>>Download sources for Xerces-J. Read README, which tells me I need the |
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>>tools. Download the tools. Extract "in the same directory." What does |
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>>that mean? Read build.sh. Ah, tools is in the Xerces directory. Do that. |
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>> Run sh build.sh jars. Result: |
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>> |
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>>BUILD SUCCESSFUL |
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>>Total time: 13 seconds |
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>> |
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>>Do I really have to do this with Xalan as well? Java 5 ships with |
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>>xerces as its parser, in place of crimson. That's in the incompatibility |
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>>notes. It ships with xalan, and defaults to using xsltc. Also in the |
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>>incompatibility notes. (And xalan 2.7.0 has one reported bug that I |
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>>know of that causes problems with netbeans 5.0). |
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>> |
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>>The simple fact is that I can pick up any of the binaries and they will |
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>>almost certainly run without problems. There are a handful of obscure |
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>>binary-level incompatibilities, but the only problem I have encountered |
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>>is the netbeans bug I mentioned; not an incompatibility. |
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>> |
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>>Peter |
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> |
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> |
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> |
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> I think you're missing one of the main points here... he did NOT say |
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> that they would not compile at all -- he said they would not compile on |
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> the current Gentoo ebuild base (e.g., "... using a 1.5 JDK to emerge |
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> your system"). |
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> |
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> Then, did you see the rest of his message, the part talking about the |
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> 1.5 overlay that is being worked on? The main point of the overlay is |
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> to get these "incompatibilities" resolved. Then the "fixed" ebuilds |
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> from the overlay can become mainstream in Portage. |
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> |
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> This stuff takes time, especially when system-level stability issues |
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> stand in the balance. |
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|
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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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|
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This is not a technical issue, it's an ideological issue, as I said |
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before. 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. The genuine options |
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for J5 users are to scrap the Gentoo Java support and maintain your own |
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Java environment, or to abandon Gentoo. |
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|
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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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|
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Peter |
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-- |
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Peter B. West <http://cv.pbw.id.au/> |
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Folio <http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio/> |