[CentOS] CentOS 5.4 64-bit: Java web browser plugin for 64-bit FireFox?

Thu Jan 28 19:47:42 UTC 2010
Rob Kampen <rkampen at kampensonline.com>

Les Mikesell wrote:
> On 1/28/2010 12:58 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
>   
>>>> http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/PluginsFor64BitFirefox
>>>>
>>>> [rhetorical] Why does this mailing list insist on reinventing the wheel
>>>> rather than perform a simple search of existing documentation first?
>>>>         
>>> You sort-of expect end users to do that.  A more relevant question is
>>> why is it shipped broken in the first place?  Is it just Red Hat trying
>>> to maintain their reputation for making java as hard to use as possible?
>>>       
>> Java is an odd case: *Sun* has weird / non-compatible license issues, so
>> RH (or CentOS) cannot just re-distribute the Sun JDK and appearently the
>> openjdk does not include a web browser plug in (nothing RH or CentOS can
>> do about that).
>>     
>
> Netscape was once an odd case and RH managed to deal with it in a usable 
> way instead of shipping something different and broken with the same 
> name.  The jpackage folks had a perfectly usable way to handle the parts 
> that weren't redistributable, back when they weren't redistributable but 
> instead of staying compatible with their repository, RH copied parts and 
> change them in ways that broke the rest. When the license changed on the 
> Sun sdk to make it redistributable and debian incorporated it in their 
> main repostiory, RH only added it to the subscription update stream and 
> CentOS ignored it completely.  None of this makes any sense to me.
>
>   
>> And it appears that Sun decided to change the name and location of the
>> 64-bit plugin, which is what threw me, esp. since in the *32-bit* Sun
>> JDK (6u18) the *old* plugin library is just where I expected it to be.
>> Why did Sun do *that*?  You would have thought that they would have
>> included a README there to explain what they did.
>>
>>     
>
> Sun engineers are from some other planet?  Since they were so 
> cooperative in open-sourcing the codebase when someone asked, I wonder 
> if anyone from Red Hat ever explained the expected locations for things 
> to land and asked them to build a compatible rpm package the users could 
> install?  Having an rpm that doesn't drop into the right places on RH 
> doesn't make any sense to me either.
>
>   
Especially when rpm is RedHat Package manager - they created it, one 
would expect that all users would ensure it works with the creator's 
structure and way of working. I guess there are deeper issues here that 
are best not exposed. At least Sun's java is now under an open source 
license!!
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