Re: [gentoo-java] OpenJDK, IcedTea and Package Naming

["Robert Burrell Donkin" <robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Andrew John Hughes
<gnu_andrew@member.fsf.org> wrote:
> 2008/9/13 Robert Burrell Donkin <robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com>:

<snip>

>> AIUI and IMNSHO *NO* local build from source qualifies. gentoo
>> *SHOULD* *NOT* expose users to risk by using trademarks etc for *ANY*
>> source build even from the sun tree.
>>
>
> Maybe that's being a bit over cautious,

i agree that sun is unlikely to sue any users over java ATM but
trademarks must be defended or cease to exist. sooner or later sun
will have to either lose the java trademark or act against
unauthorised users.

> but the problem generally is
> Sun thought of this with binary distribution in mind, not source.

the JCP is set up to manage binaries, not source. IMO this is the
fatal flaw in this system. (i'll avoid going OT by repeating the
argument again here.)

> As with any legal agreement, the best solution is to consult a lawyer.
> I'm not one.

does gentoo have a agreement with sun?
if so, is it available on line?
if not, what agreement is being relyed on?

>> BTW i'm on AMD64 which has very poor support from the sun java
>> codebase. are there any plans to add support for the harmony VM?
>>
>
> What 'poor support'? IcedTea6 works fine for me here on amd64.

eclipse and sun don't play well. however, i haven't tried switching to
the iced tea build on gentoo so maybe i'll give that a try next time.

> Feel free to package Harmony, but I don't see how that will solve your problems,

harmony runs eclipse fine. every couple of months when gentoo changes
something, i have to devote a couple of hours fixing stuff so that
eclipse works or else switch to harmony until everything's fixed.

> given it doesn't yet have a complete implementation of even 1.5.

if sun had honoured it's agreement to allow access to the TCK by open
source projects,  then harmony (and the free JVMs) would have had
certified 1.5 implementations a year ago and (most likely) 1.6 ones as
well by now. this is a political issue, not a code one.

- robert