[CentOS] JPackage, Java 1.5.0, and CentOS 5?

[R P Herrold]

On Sat, 21 Apr 2007, Ioannis Vranos wrote:

> R P Herrold wrote:
>> We document the approach we use on CentOS at:
>>    http://www.trading-shim.org/faq/?java#web

> That was a great link, it helped me make the JDK as the 
> default! Thanks a lot

No problem -- I see a later question on the mailing list as 
well, asking for similar writups for tomcat, and one assumes 
eclipse and friends;  I am very conflicted here as to 
releasing the approaches I use, as they are NOT AT ALL well 
integrated to the packaging tool, and I can see no _simple_ 
method for knowing and controlling defined versions of .jar 
files in play.

This seems to be a conscious choice by the Java community, 
along with bloat and carrying around local versions to get 
around API change issues, but I cannot see how to document 
such and provide a reasonable approach for security and 
license and version audit.

I do not understand how very large deployments, with Change 
Control requirements, can solve this issue, other than in a 
binary blob deployment manner.  Not very 'source available' 
and Free.   ;(

Perhaps with the release of centos-5, the upstream shift of 
focus to Java packaging issues, and the wider availability of 
Java to the Free, and non-Enterprise sides of Linux, this 
space will start to settle down

-- Russ Herrold