[CentOS] stock openjdk vs. epel

Thu Jun 4 17:15:53 UTC 2009
Nicolas Thierry-Mieg <Nicolas.Thierry-Mieg at imag.fr>

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Rex Dieter wrote:
>>>>> If you have the epel repo installed and enabled during a yum update, you
>>>>> get java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-1.0.b12.el5.2 instead of the stock .b09
>>>>> version.  Is this intentional and desirable?  I thought epel generally
>>>>> did not replace stock components with newer versions.
>>>> EPEL doesn't replace rhel5 packages, true, and afaict,  openjdk isn't in
>>>> rhel5.  Perhaps a centos addon/extra?
>>>>
>>>> -- Rex
>>> That might have been true at one point in time but it isn't now.  On a
>>> stock RHEL5.x you can say 'yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk' and you get a
>> OK, found it, I'll go known some skulls @ epel.
> 
> I'm not sure it's really a bad thing.  For example OpenNMS claims it 
> needs b12 or later.  But it is curious that apparently no one noticed or 
> knows which is better.  Has the history of Linux distro treatment of 
> java (shipping one that doesn't work and being unfriendly to the one 
> that does) completely destroyed any interest?

Many people might not have noticed because they use yum priorities or 
apt pinning, as they should.
Others might have noticed but ignored it as it is not a centos issue but 
an epel one, so there was nothing to report on this list. (Why it wasn't 
reported to epel is another question, but doesn't concern this list.)