[fedora-java] Proposal to deprecate _prefer_jre

[Jiri Vanek]

On 05/18/2015 08:29 AM, Aleksandar Kurtakov wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mikolaj Izdebski" <mizdebsk at redhat.com>
>> To: "Fedora Java Development List" <java-devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Sent: Monday, 18 May, 2015 8:07:15 AM
>> Subject: [fedora-java] Proposal to deprecate _prefer_jre
>>
>> _prefer_jre is environmental variable, which once set to true causes
>> javapackages-tools to prefer JRE over JDK when choosing JVM to use.
>>
>> _prefer_jre was most useful in multi-JVM scenario. For example when
>> there was JDK 1.5 and JRE 1.7 installed, javapackages-tools would choose
>> JDK 1.5 by default. Setting _prefer_jre=true would allow more recent JRE
>> 1.7 to be used instead.
>>
>> Currently in Fedora there is only one Java implementation. Moreover,
>> with Java 9 distinction between JDK and JRE becomes less clear.
>> Therefore I propose to deprecate _prefer_jre environmental variable and
>> remove it in a future release of javapackages-tools, in a year or so.
>>
>> Any objections or comments?
>
> +1 . It's not widely used and is yet another reason for unpredictability.
>
>
I don't understand this effort.

With https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1098508 in mind - why to abandon it?
I'm not exactly  against  this proposal, but  I still have an feeling that there is underlying issue in java packages or in jtools.

The correct approach, if jre + sdk separation will be kept, should be:
only jre installed - use jre
sdk installed (jre installed as dependence) :
   - application requires jre - use jre
   - application rewires  devel, use jdk

Now - jdk9 ... is different. Maybe something can be done better so jtools nor java apps suffer by above logic.

J.