On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 06:58:58PM +0200, Jan Schulz wrote: > Hallo Matt, > > * Matt Zimmerman wrote: > >and not an abstract idea of what is provided. For example, a package which > >works with any java2 runtime, but also works with the interfaces provided by > >kaffe, uses "java2-runtime | kaffe", etc. > > The interface java2-runtime means, that /usr/bin/java can be used.
Which is not a useful concept, because almost no nontrivial applications can work with everything which currently provides /usr/bin/java. > This is, why I started this Proposal. I like some of the ideas in your proposal, but things like "Java Runtime Environments, which are complient to the Java Spec of a specific Version, have to provide the virtual package [...] and setup alternatives [...]" are not achievable with the current state of free java. None of the java implementations in Debian would be able to provide these virtual packages or alternatives. This is a shame, because the free JVMs are able to run a lot of code, and would benefit from more use and exposure. -- - mdz
