via SunMink:
JDK on GNU/Linux
Finally!
I’ve been running Debian for … oh, eight years or so, I think. Moved to debian during the libc6 update, because I didn’t want to upgrade my slackware system myself. Debian has, without a dobut, the best packaging system in the linux/unix world.
Of course, it also has some of the most opinionated, bigoted and stubborn people in the linux/unix world. And, by bigoted, I mean “against anything not Free”. The current fight is with the Free Software Foundation (!) over the GNU Free Documentation License. Debian seems to belive that it’s not free enough, and is currently removing whole swaths of manuals and documentation because of it.
This approach has actually been remarkably effective in the past — Debian is primarily responsible for changing KDE’s licence back in the late 90’s because they refused to distribute it.
So, in some sense, it’s not surprising to see that they were working on a mutually agreeable license with Sun. On the other hand, Java has been shipped under the same license for most of it’s 10 year history — ever since JDK2 came out, really. It’s surprising to see that inertia shift directions.
It’ll certainly make the packaging and distribution of java-based applications much easier. This goes in the “win” column.
Yup, right now I’m downloading sun-java5-* through Synaptic in Ubuntu to do some Java development and I’m really surprised in plus that it goes so well now. Definitely a “win” thing, way to go.