Re: [java-gnome-hackers] Libraries vs Packaging (1): Linkage

[Andrew C. <an...@op...>]

On Wed, 2011-06-01 at 14:19 -0300, Francisco Ortiz wrote:
...
> I really like the compile-time flags proposal
> ...but not include the java classes in the JAR is BIG problem from
> (library) users perspective. You will end up with a non consistent API
> from java side, you will have version java-gnome 4.0.20 with the
> library or without it and the user will not know it. Or based on the
> distro will have it or not. Same java program will throw a
> ClassNotFoundException in the platform not supporting the
> functionality.

Yes, that's my concern exactly. We *did* have that situation in the 2.x
days, because we had Cairo bindings that needed PDF support, but at the
time some distros were shipping Cairo built with --enable-pdf and some
were not.

Made it damn near impossible to package libcairo-java at the time.

And made it useless to try writing a program against it, because you
[the developer] had no idea if your it would work when installed on a
users' system...

Pain & suffering.

        [There was a lot of that in the 2.x days. When I inherited
        java-gnome, there were 9+ upstream modules and 6+ downstream
        packages (that were alive). Trying to do a point release just to
        fix an autotools problem and then ship those packages in a
        distro was insanely painful. Took 9 hours, I kid you not (and
        people wonder why I hate automake so much)]

Anyway.

> Putting the topic about including non-pure-gnome dependencies aside,

That actually *is* a significant engineering question. I think Serkan
wants this too. We should talk about it. I'll start a new thread for
that part.

AfC
Sydney