RE: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it?

["Riyad Kalla" <rsk@u.arizona.edu>]

I agree with your reasoning. I support the cutting of the JRE (actually
I don't think I've downloaded the JRE since 1.2)

-Riyad

-----Original Message-----
From: Dylan Carlson [mailto:absinthe@gentoo.org] 
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 8:49 PM
To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
Subject: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it?


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Greetings,

This is not an RFC, per se, but I am posting this with the general
purpose of soliciting discussion.  This might be a controversial
subject, so I think it warrants some conversation before it reaches the
level of an RFC.

I have talked with a couple of people the idea of dropping JRE support
in Gentoo.  The reasons this idea came about:

1.  Gentoo is a source-based distribution.  We have Java-based packages
that build from source for the same reason that have C packages that
build from source.  Yet, it's unthinkable to have a system without a C
compiler. Thus it should be almost as unthinkable to have a system
without a Java compiler.

2.  Few people actually use a JRE inside of Gentoo for the above reason
(if
any) ... yet of course reliable statistics on this are not available.
Furthermore, some packages require a JDK to run, namely servlet engines,
development environments, and rare apps that depend on the JDK without
actually compiling/debugging anything.

3.  Jikes will compile most things, but not everything.  Furthermore,
Jikes lacks a javadoc tool, among other things.  So it's not suitable to
have a JRE + Jikes combination, though in theory that might be possible
someday.


User impact to the above idea:

1.  Download & install size:   Using 1.4 as our example, JRE's are about
a
22MB download.  JDKs are about 42MB.   It's also safe to assume that the
JDKs also occupy roughly twice the disk space, though I don't have
specifics on it for this email.

2.  Reduced complexity in java-config(1), simplifies the nature of Java
ebuilds for both Gentoo developers and users submitting ebuilds alike.

3.  Reduced QA burden.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

Cheers,
Dylan Carlson

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