[fedora-java] Eclipse Luna on Fedora 21 and JDK 8 requirement

[Max Rydahl Andersen]

>>>
>>> Fedora 20 used to have 3 different Java versions (5, 7, 8).
>>
>> ok, why no Java 6 ?
>
> Besides many technical reason the biggest one is non-technical in my 
> eyes - no one volunteered to do it. You know it's always a matter of 
> "who will do the work?". I'm pretty sure that if someone jumps in and 
> say "Hey, I'll maintain Java 6, fix problems/adopt Java 6 to changes 
> in the OS if neeeded, help strengthen the switching between JREs, go 
> through the Java projects(shipped in Fedora) and help them properly 
> set their targets in build scripts so builds properly work on Java 6 
> and etc" there will be no objection to having Java 6. :)

Fair enough.

>>> OpenJDK 7
>>> was removed from F21 because its support will end before F21 EOL and
>>> we
>>> don't want to ship software not supported by upstream.
>>
>> So for users most stable thing is to use Oracle JDK builds instead 
>> which
>> are and will stay available ?
>
> Users can still try to use it but it's something that they have to do 
> on their own - download, extract, set PATH, etc. Just like on every 
> platform with Oracle JVM.

Yeah, this is similar experience for developers on all other platforms 
so its expected/assumed.

>> No separate repo with "binaries that is currently supported but will 
>> not
>> stay supported for all of fedora 21 lifetime" ?
>
> 1. Fedora can not legally redistribute Oracle JDK.

I know - hence why I would think having a openjdk 7 build would make 
sense.

> 2. Fedora can not distribute something that Fedora developers can not 
> support if there is a problem in it (as it is with Oracle JDK).

so *any* package that is known to be marked as EOL sometime in the 
future before the upcoming Fedora EOL's gets removed from that future 
Fedora release ? Even that Java 7 is still the most used and targeted 
Java version ?

How does fedora handle it when a package stops being maintained 
midstream with not proper warning ? Do they get removed or just lets 
getting be stale ?

If removed - why couldn't that be done for Java7 ?

If just letting get stale - why couldn't that be done for Java7 ?

And I assume the answers is you just don't have time/power to maintain 
it and thats is fully grokkable - but then
it seems to me it would be good for users if we at least explain how 
they can use another Java 7 in fedora eclipse context (which was the 
initial question here)

Thus is the answer to that to tell users to have their custom 
eclipse.ini pointing at the oracle JDK 7 and then
launch eclipse pointing to the vm ?

Like 'eclipse --launcher.ini <ini.location>'

As described in https://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.ini and 
http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fruntime-options.html

or is there any known problems with that ?

/max
http://about.me/maxandersen