[Scope-dev] Collaboration [5]

[Christian H. <chr...@tu...>]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: Java Distribution
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:28:34 -0400
From: Gilbert Carl Herschberger II <gc...@mi...>
To: Christian Heller <chr...@tu...>

I have been wondering about making Java-based technology easier to
distribute. So, I reviewed "Building The Tomcat 4.0 Servlet/JSP Container"
from the Tomcat project:

http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/BUILDING.txt

Think about the complexity! It makes my head hurt. Why can't I just get a
Java application to download a machine-readable version of these
instructions and do all of the grunt work for me? Java is capable of
downloading files, isn't it? A "binary" command could download a jar and
all of its dependencies. A "source" command could download source code and
all of its dependencies.

There are a half-dozen other Java-based projects that have exactly the same
problem. We could share a solution. The CjOS Project has a directory filled
with many jars. Others should not be required to download each of those
jars individually. Nor should they be required to upgrade each of those
jars individually.

And what about wars? Others should not be required to download and upgrade
each war file individually. The Erica tool from the CjOS Project has
already done this for package files. It could do this for jar, ear and war
files, too. We might work with the JDistro project and others to experiment
with Erica.

Thanks,