Fedora and JPackage proprietary JDK shims

[Casey Dahlin]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>> Colin Walters wrote:
>>> On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Matthew Saltzman <mjs at clemson.edu> 
>>> wrote:
>>>>  Not sure, but I bet the "shim" is the java-sun-compat package that 
>>>> lets
>>>>  you install the Sun RPM, then sets up alternatives and other 
>>>> symlinks to
>>>>  make the expected incantations work.  That is not a nosrc package,
>>>>  though it may have no actual source.  It depends on the Sun RPM from
>>>>  java.sun.com.
>>>
>>> Yeah, that's what was under discussion, or at least it's what I
>>> thought Les wanted.
>>>
>> I know Les mentioned the nosrc rpms in the same email as he 
>> complained that Fedora wasn't shipping something that he felt was 
>> necessary for java-on-Fedora.  So I thought it best to have that 
>> clarified.
>
> Yes the java-sun-compat package is the missing piece.  Whether it's 
> actually included in fedora or not isn't particularly important, but 
> its location should be documented and there have been long intervals 
> of time when no jpackage.org support existed for current fedora 
> revisions. My impression was that this was intentional on fedora's 
> part but perhaps that was mistaken.
>

I think we need to re-gage this after we're a bit into F9 general 
availability. The open source alternatives to Java have gotten much, 
much better this go round, and many of the early adopters I've talked to 
have said their java issues have gone completely away. We need to figure 
out what role proprietary java will now play in the lives of our users.

--CJD