java

[Jacek Konieczny]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 07:00:14PM +0300, Elan Ruusamäe wrote:
> i was thinking that perhaps write packaging policy for pld
> and maybe like jpp has one (i liked their package split separation)
> 
> http://www.jpackage.org/policy.php

Some rules are needed. And jpp rules are quite good, better than no
rules at all.

> - The main package must contain only basic files needed for running the 
> software, with license agreement and basic documentation files.
> 
> - Any optional files must be provided in a separate subpackage, with 
> exact %{epoch}:%{version}-%{release} dependency to the main package.

That is quite like our usual rules.

> - User manual must be provided in a separate %{name}-manual subpackage, with 
> no dependency to the main package. 
> 
> - Each Javadoc tree must be provided in a separate %{name}-javadoc subpackage, 
> with no dependency to the main package. 

We don't have similar rules for documentation packages -- it is usually
decided per-package, based on documentation size. But the JPP rules are
not bad.

On the other hand... the package could be several kB JAR file, several
kB manual and several kB of javadoc tree... splitting that in three
packages doesn't seem smart. But I think the javadoc should be split --
it could be treated like "-devel" packages for C/C++ libraries.

> ie recently i converted from jpp to pld so you could look:
> ./jimi.spec
[...]
> ./jakarta-commons-httpclient3.spec
[...]
> ./asm.spec
> ./asm2.spec
[...]
> 
> and indeed the package names do not follow any policy or regularity :)

And that is no good. It is ok for project like JPP, which containst only
Java packages, but in PLD it would be too easy to get a conflict. I think
some additional rules would be good, like using "java-" prefix for
standalone (not part of bigger project, like Jakarta) java library
packages.

And it would be great to have a fully functional toolchain for Java
(fully featured ant) in Ac, without delaying Ac for just that reason...
so we don't have much time. Fortunately, preparing Java-related packages
doesn't mean recompiling any big part of distro.

I think it would be good to follow JPP as close as possible maybe with
a few, documented differences (like package naming scheme).

Greets,
        Jacek