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Re: Java development on debian ppc

On Thursday 29 June 2000, at 14 h 11, 
"C.M. Connelly" <c@eskimo.com> wrote:
 
> Following your suggestion, I took a look at Kaffe's Web site and
> downloaded the source tar file.

There is no need to do so. Since there is a Debian package, 'apt-get install 
kaffe' should suffice. But:

> 1. Compatibility.  Kaffe isn't as up-to-date as the Sun/Blackdown
>    JDK, 

Stuff which is only available in a non-free software does not interest me. 
BTW, you pointed Sun's marketing plan: despite the hype about Java, the 
language is not perfectly free, since some features are not available to 
anybody.

This sort of information seems to me more as Java-bashing than Kaffe-bashing. 
tell that to an assembly of C programmers and no one would want to switch to 
Java!

> 2. Convenience.  Kaffe isn't available as a binary package for
>    PowerPC.  They do have Debian packages (unlike Blackdown), but
>    only for the i386 architecture.

No, there is at least the Alpha version in Debian. (I didn't test it but the 
".deb" is in the Debian archive.)

> 3. Compilability.  Kaffe simply doesn't build on PowerPC Linux
>    systems 

I wasn't aware of this problem (I didn't try kaffe on PowerPC). You should 
report this as a bug and an important one. Unless it is done, there is little 
incentive to work on the problem since kaffe's maintainer may be not even 
aware of the fact.

> That means that presenting Kaffe as a free alternative to the
> Sun/Blackdown JDK on PowerPC is a false lead -- 

I would rephrase it: if there is no Free Java solution (which means a real and 
workable one, on all platforms, and without segmentation faults at every 
opportunity), then we should stop working with Java and start encouraging 
people to switch to another language.


--
http://www.debian.org/~bortz/
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