[Mageia-dev] Actual java stack is absurd !

[Anssi Hannula]

03.05.2012 11:28, Claire REVILLET kirjoitti:
> Hi,
> 
> Looking at this bug : https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5732
> i tried to install Scilab under cauldron 64 : it needs 367 packages !!!
> 
> Scilab does not need apache nor sql. And more than that : it does not
> need sending or receiving emails, so why should javamail be installed ?
> 
> I know that packaging java is special, but working like that brings just
> more conflict issues. And that also means that on a small computer,  we
> can't have any java software.
> 
> I know it's too late for mga2, but can't we thing about that before mg3
> release, please ?

I think most of the java dependency issues can be put to two specific
categories:

(a) Libraries that have a lot of optional dependencies. IMHO at least
the biggest ones of those deps should be stripped from the "library"
packages and moved to the application packages instead. It would make
handling a bit different than what we do for normal
libraries+applications, but it seems like for java it is necessary if we
want to get rid of insane deps (note that when fixing/workarounding
these it is important to document the modifications in comments).

(b) Package contains both a "library" and tools, and the tools have lots
of dependencies, and the library is used by other packages. In this case
the library (.jar file) should be splitted out. Debian has done quite
well in this regard ("libfoo-java" policy).

I think there are also some (c) completely wrong deps.

I worked on this a bit a few years back, but I think most of my changes
have since been overwritten with fedora versions despite comments noting
the change... I guess anyone doing these fixes needs to push them to
fedora as well to make them stick.

I don't think I have much personal interest in working on this in the
near future myself, though -- I don't normally use java apps and I've
many other things to work on.

-- 
Anssi Hannula