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Re: `make install` should install the info files in java


Bryce McKinlay <bryce@albatross.co.nz> writes:

> Red Hat tried this a while back by installing Kaffe as "java", but all
> it did was create headaches and piss people off.

That is because Kaffe was noticably incompatible/inferior to Sun's java.
Even worse, the installed /usr/bin/javac is totally useless for anything
except toy programs.

> GCJ's tools are
> likely to be installed in the default path, so by giving them
> conflicting names we would making it very difficult to have both GCJ
> and the JDK installed and working simultaneously.

As long as JDK is non-free, we need a free equivalent to jar.  fastjar
(assuming it is more-or-less compatible) does that job.  There is no
difficulty to have both GCJ and SDK installed and working simultaneously
- you just have to install them in different locations.  Then it is a
question of setting PATH appropriately.  As long as Sun keeps JDK
non-free, we (as members of the GNU community) must prioritize Free
alternatives, and not worry about where people install JDK.  If Sun
decides to make JDK Free, then we can have a technical discussion
over which should be installed.

> Admittedly, in the case of fastjar, people are unlikely to notice or
> care, but this would be setting a dangerous precedent.

It is not a dangerous precedent, it is GNU tradition:  make, sed, cpp,
cp, tar, ...  It would be more painful to have to tweak every make script
to use gmake, gsed, gcpp, gcp, gtar.

> I definitely don't like the idea of
> installing gij as java or "gcj -C" as javac.

Well, I think that should be an option (by which I mean we should
make gij as compatible as possible with java amd "gcj -C' as compatible
as possible with javac, so someone *can* install things that way).
I think it would be premature at best for our Makefiles to to
actually install gij/gcj as java/javac, though it could be a configure
option.

Debian has some mechanism involving virtual packages and an "alternatives"
mechanism.  I don't know how this works, but under Debian it would make
sense to say that gcj "provides" javac and gij "provides" java, without
conflicting with installing jdk.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://www.bothner.com/~per/


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