Harmony, Charles gets it in one

As always, Charles Miller gets it in one, as great as an apache licensed JVM would be, starting with nothing more than an architecture diagram is bound to attract noone but Architecture Astronauts.

As always, Charles Miller gets it in one, as great as an apache licensed JVM would be, starting with nothing more than an architecture diagram is bound to attract noone but Architecture Astronauts.

There is one very valid reason for producing a JVM, the second point on Charles’ list.

1. An ideological objection to non-Free software
2. So Linux distributions can package a JDK

The Jpackage guys are doing a fantastic job packaging all the open source Java libraries for various RPM based systems. You can just run yum install tomcat5 and you’re up and running. Assuming you have a JVM installed.

That’s a pretty big assumption, installing the JPackage rpms for the sun jdks is an absolute debacle. It involves:

1. Download the sun installer
2. Copy it to a special directory
3. Download the .nosrc rpm
4. rpmbuild the nosrc rpm
5. Install the RPMs that appear in another special directory

Now I know enough about RPM to understand the special directories, and I know enough about Sun’s license to understand why the JPackage guys can’t just provide downloads. However none of that alters the fact that keeping your ‘official’ JVM up to date is a total pain in the ass for any linux distribution.

Add to that the fact that Java doesn’t even run on FreeBSD and there’s a pretty compelling case for a free JVM.

Does that case stack up against the downsides Charles mentions?

slaving away over a lot of compatibility edge-cases to reproduce something that is already freely (gratis) available, just so Linux geeks don’t have to download the JDK from Sun like the rest of us

Not to me, but your mileage may vary.