[7944] in testers
Re: Debathena beta
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rohan Agrawal)
Sat Mar 14 12:47:08 2009
From: Rohan Agrawal <agrawalr@MIT.EDU>
To: Evan Broder <broder@mit.edu>
Cc: testers@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <49BAF462.4050709@mit.edu>
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Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:45:59 -0400
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Hello,
Thanks for the response.
Regarding acroread, I know it exists in medibuntu, so if there aren't
legal issues with using medibuntu, it wouldn't be more work to have
acroread installed. Aside from just having a much more polished feel
than evince, I think acroread's printing options (specifying the lpr
command, multiple pages per sheet, etc) are very nice. I understand
that there might be license issues with using medibuntu though.
About the java plugin, I don't have any problem with openjdk. My
comment was more about consistency - the computer I used had the sun
jdk, but the icedtea plugin, and thus the openjdk jre. I figured it
should either be sun jdk and sun plugin, or openjdk and icedtea plugin.
Thanks,
Rohan
On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 20:03 -0400, Evan Broder wrote:
> Hi Rohan -
> Thanks for getting in touch.
>
> Rohan Agrawal wrote:
> >
> > 1. Why has it been decided not to install acroread locally? I
> > imagine many people would prefer it to evince, and running it
> > from the locker is quite slow.
> >
>
> With Debathena, one of the major goals was to both avoid packaging
> software ourselves that we don't maintain, and also to try and stay
> inline with the upstream (in this case, Ubuntu) defaults as much as
> possible.
>
> We don't maintain acroread, obviously, and it's also currently not
> available in the Ubuntu archive. It's encumbered license makes it
> unlikely to show up in Ubuntu anytime soon. On the other hand, evince is
> the Ubuntu default PDF reader, and that's where the focus of both Ubuntu
> and GNOME development will be.
>
> Are there specific things that you find lacking in evince? It may be
> possible to encourage Ubuntu and GNOME developers to try and correct
> those deficiencies.
>
> > 2. I noticed that the java plugin installed is icedtea6-plugin,
> > even though the sun jdk is installed. Why not use
> > sun-java6-plugin to be consistent?
> >
>
> icedtea6-plugin is the Java plugin corresponding to OpenJDK, which is
> Sun's re-release of the Java JDK under a Free license. It is, at this
> point, almost entirely equivalent to the Sun JDK, and Debian/Ubuntu's
> alternatives management system will prefer it over Sun JDK.
>
> We recently made the decision to install OpenJDK as it also is
> unencumbered by licensing issues. We're expecting to find that it can
> function as a drop-in replacement for the Sun JDK, but if you find that
> that's not the case, you should let us know.
>
> > 3. The version of eclipse in intrepid (and jaunty) is very old, and
> > it being installed was a bit confusing. Maybe just require that
> > eclipse be run from the locker?
> >
>
> It seems that updating eclipse to version 3.4 in both Debian and Ubuntu
> is more or less completely stalled at the moment (see
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432350 and
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/123064). It seems
> like gears are finally starting to turn, but I don't think it's going to
> get updated for Jaunty.
>
> In the mean time, while 3.2.2 is pretty old at this point, I suspect
> there may be people who prefer the speed of running eclipse locally over
> waiting for it to load out of a locker, but I'm not sure. It's
> definitely something that we can discuss.
>
> In the mean time, you can force the locker version by running "add -f
> eclipse", which adds eclipse to the *f*ront of your path, instead of the
> end.
>
> - Evan
> SIPB Debathena Team
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Hello,<BR>
<BR>
Thanks for the response.<BR>
<BR>
Regarding acroread, I know it exists in medibuntu, so if there aren't legal issues with using medibuntu, it wouldn't be more work to have acroread installed. Aside from just having a much more polished feel than evince, I think acroread's printing options (specifying the lpr command, multiple pages per sheet, etc) are very nice. I understand that there might be license issues with using medibuntu though.<BR>
<BR>
About the java plugin, I don't have any problem with openjdk. My comment was more about consistency - the computer I used had the sun jdk, but the icedtea plugin, and thus the openjdk jre. I figured it should either be sun jdk and sun plugin, or openjdk and icedtea plugin.<BR>
<BR>
Thanks,<BR>
Rohan<BR>
<BR>
On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 20:03 -0400, Evan Broder wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<PRE>
Hi Rohan -
Thanks for getting in touch.
Rohan Agrawal wrote:
>
> 1. Why has it been decided not to install acroread locally? I
> imagine many people would prefer it to evince, and running it
> from the locker is quite slow.
>
With Debathena, one of the major goals was to both avoid packaging
software ourselves that we don't maintain, and also to try and stay
inline with the upstream (in this case, Ubuntu) defaults as much as
possible.
We don't maintain acroread, obviously, and it's also currently not
available in the Ubuntu archive. It's encumbered license makes it
unlikely to show up in Ubuntu anytime soon. On the other hand, evince is
the Ubuntu default PDF reader, and that's where the focus of both Ubuntu
and GNOME development will be.
Are there specific things that you find lacking in evince? It may be
possible to encourage Ubuntu and GNOME developers to try and correct
those deficiencies.
> 2. I noticed that the java plugin installed is icedtea6-plugin,
> even though the sun jdk is installed. Why not use
> sun-java6-plugin to be consistent?
>
icedtea6-plugin is the Java plugin corresponding to OpenJDK, which is
Sun's re-release of the Java JDK under a Free license. It is, at this
point, almost entirely equivalent to the Sun JDK, and Debian/Ubuntu's
alternatives management system will prefer it over Sun JDK.
We recently made the decision to install OpenJDK as it also is
unencumbered by licensing issues. We're expecting to find that it can
function as a drop-in replacement for the Sun JDK, but if you find that
that's not the case, you should let us know.
> 3. The version of eclipse in intrepid (and jaunty) is very old, and
> it being installed was a bit confusing. Maybe just require that
> eclipse be run from the locker?
>
It seems that updating eclipse to version 3.4 in both Debian and Ubuntu
is more or less completely stalled at the moment (see
<A HREF="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432350">http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432350</A> and
<A HREF="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/123064">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/123064</A>). It seems
like gears are finally starting to turn, but I don't think it's going to
get updated for Jaunty.
In the mean time, while 3.2.2 is pretty old at this point, I suspect
there may be people who prefer the speed of running eclipse locally over
waiting for it to load out of a locker, but I'm not sure. It's
definitely something that we can discuss.
In the mean time, you can force the locker version by running "add -f
eclipse", which adds eclipse to the *f*ront of your path, instead of the
end.
- Evan
SIPB Debathena Team
</PRE>
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