Java in Fedora

[Gary Benson]

Carwyn Edwards wrote:
> Where can I find more info about the thinking behind how Java
> applications like ant/tomcat/xerces etc are being added to FC?

You should probably ask me ;)  The plan is as follows:

 1) Include Tomcat and Ant from RHUG/Naoko in FC2.  Naoko has the
    advantage that it exists and works (though not yet properly on
    FC2).  Naoko has the disadvantages of being incompatible with
    JPackage and or being a pain in the ass to maintain.  Hence:

 2) a) Use the Naoko packages to bootstrap ourselves into the position
       where we are building everything the usual way, with ant, and
       then compiling the ant-built jars to native code.

    b) Replace/augment the packaging architecture so that FC2 packages
       are drop-in replacements for their JPackage equivalents in
       order that JPackage stuff can be installed on top of FC2.

The current state of affairs is that #1 is in progress, and #2 will
happen after #1.  It'll probably turn out that 2a slightly precedes
2b, but they'll pretty much simultaneous.

> We Currently use Jpackage.org for all our Java packages but it seems
> that with FC2 onwards there are going to be horrible package
> conflicts.

At the very least you'll be able to avoid conflicts by simply
uninstalling the FC2 Naoko packages.  It's just me working on it at
the moment, and my priorities are to get it working first, and to get
it working without stomping all over JPackage second ;)

> Is there any cooperation or plan in relation to this? As and end
> user it's imperative for me that I should at least be able to plug
> in either of the Sun/Blackdown/IBM sdks and get a full SDK
> runtime/toolset.

There's no big plan or anything, but I have been speaking with one of
the JPackage guys (Paul Nasrat).  At the moment the big thing stopping
interoperation between FC and JPackage is the time we have available
to make it happen.

Gary