Java problem
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Thu Jan 3 19:53:56 UTC 2008
Lamar Owen wrote:
>
>> If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. And if you haven't
>> measured it, why, if you release it, should someone install it?
>
> To help develop and test it perhaps? Fedora is a community, not a product.
I thought rawhide was the place for testing.
> Yes, a user typically doesn't care about that. But a user SHOULD care about
> it, and learn that truly Free software is a worthwhile goal, regardless of
> the inconvenience.
That is a religion, not an observation. Not having a monopoly is what
I'd consider a better goal, and letting competition deliver what is
worthwhile.
> While I am one who actually understands your issue, and while I agree with
> much of it, at the same time, when I chose to run Fedora 8 on this laptop I
> knew (or should have known) what I was getting into, and I also knew that
> things would be volatile. This is not an Enterprise distribution, after all.
> Do I despise it when I have to hand-patch the VMware source shim to get it to
> compile, on a regular basis? Sure I do; but it's as much VMware's fault as
> it is Fedora's.
No it isn't. That would be the same for any non-included code. You
can't seriously think that every possible, useful piece of code should
be included in the distribution and all rebuilt whenever any of it is,
can you?
> And, for that matter, it's my own fault for choosing a
> proprietary virtualization solution on top of an unsupported (by VMware)
> distribution; and I accept that responsibility.
But you've got that source that you recompile every time the kernel
breaks your binary.
> Do I hate it when a new kernel version comes along that breaks the drivers for
> my video card? Sure: but I chose to buy that card, I chose to run Fedora,
> and I chose to run the BLOB drivers; so it's my fault as much as it is the
> others' fault. Will I submit bug reports? Perhaps; perhaps I'll just wait,
> and perhaps I won't blindly update my kernel (very very few kernel bugs
> result in remote system compromise, and I run enough layers of security, and
> am willing enough to reinstall my system from scratch if need be, to where
> it's not an issue). Better, though, is that the manufacturer of my FireGL
> V3100 is releasing the source so that it can be integrated upstream, helping
> everyone.
Maybe - do you expect the people who don't care about the trouble they
are causing you now to do any better once they are in complete control?
> But to bring it back to Java: Fedora is providing the most compatible Java
> that is available under a Fedora-compatible license.
Is this horseshoes? Do you get extra points if your code almost works?
>
> This is much like the IPv4 to IPv6 'migration' situation that's been discussed
> all over NANOG (and other networking groups) for years;
[...]
>
> The 'purist' solution would have been IPv6 instead of NAT;
The 'purist' approach would have been to use the overspec'd and
underimplemented OSI protocols in the first place instead of IP and not
run out of addresses. But there wasn't a *bsd licensed version to drive
adoption (or a free gov't sponsored directory service)...
> use this as a
> comparison to the 'purely Free Fedora stance' versus the 'I just want it to
> work' stance: many network ops will say (probably correctly!) that NAT set
> back the Internet ten years or more on getting IPv6 deployed. Of course, the
> overreaching expansion and bloat that is IPv6 didn't help any! Necessity is
> the mother of invention; having no necessity produces feeping creaturitis.
>
> Our 'popular network protocol' wasn't designed; it was developed in an
> iterative and not well managed process (RFC's? Managed? ROTFL!) ; yet it
> works.
I believe there was exactly one non-backwards compatible change when
there were about a dozen hosts connected. Since then, backwards
compatibility and not breaking the existing, installed base has been the
primary concern - and the reason that base has continued to increase.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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