[fedora-java] Improving Fedora javadoc

[Gary Benson]

David Walluck wrote:
> Gary Benson wrote:
> > Circular dependencies cannot be avoided for Fedora as a whole
> > because there are packages which depend upon themselves -- the
> > kernel, gcc, rpm, etc.  This doesn't make any of those packages
> > not free.
> 
> I agree with everything here. While gcc, the kernel, etc. may be
> special cases, we may try to avoid circular dependencies with java
> packages at least. It is not that hard. Most bootstrap packages
> exist in jpackage already (and hopefully they don't use binary
> jars).

I agree it's not that hard, but it is also not without price.
Fedora's bootstrapping was a one-off, and can be forgotten about now
it's done.  Bootstrap packages, on the other hand, must maintained.
This means they must be updated and tested for every new release.
They must be shipped, over the network and on CDs.  Finally they must
be monitored for security vulnerabilities for as long as they exist in
a Red Hat supported product.  Any package (bootstrap or otherwise) I
introduce into Fedora that ends up in the next version of RHEL will
have to be monitored until 2013!

If you want to bootstrap Fedora yourself can you not simply use the
JPackage ant-bootstrap to get it all going?

> > There's only a couple left in the Fedora JOnAS, but these require
> > Maven and its 60-70 dependencies that are not yet in Fedora.  I'm
> > swamped with the 80-90 packages I already maintain!  I should be
> > getting help Real Soon Now, but until that happens we'll be stuck
> > with the binary dependencies (and old package versions, and the
> > other stuff I don't have time to fix).
> 
> All, the more reason for jpackage and FC not to diverge. As we know,
> someone from Red Hat has been working on a free maven, so maybe the
> update to jonas can eventually happen.

It _will_ happen, don't worry about that :)

> > > I believe xalan-j2 also has prebuilt jars in the build
> > 
> > It does.
> 
> I don't believe they are required to build if you just avoid
> building the docs (which requrie stylebook, I think). Actually, 
> last time I tried to build xalan at all on a free stack it failed,
> so I will have to look at this again.

xalan-j2 was unbuildable in Fedora for a very long time but it should
be fixed now.

Cheers,
Gary