must"> may"> should"> java-virtual-machine"> java1-runtime"> java2-runtime"> java-compiler"> java2-compiler"> ]> $Revision:$ $Date:$ Lundqvist Ola opal@debian.org The current author of the java policy. Bortzmeyer Stephane bortzmeyer@debian.org The original author of the java policy. Most issues of the proposed java policy have been discussed on the debian-java@lists.debian.org mailinglist. This is the proposed java policy for Debian. It begins with a background description, continues with the real policy, some issues to discuss and ends with some advices to java packagers. The policy covers java virtual machines, java compilers, java programs and java libraries. There are several "subpolicies" in Debian. They all want to make the Debian Policy more precise when it comes to a specific subject. See the Emacs subpolicy in package emacsen-common for instance. As far as I know, the only subpolicy for a programming language, is that of Perl. Feel free to report comments, suggestions and/or disagrements to the java-common package (java-common@packages.debian.org) or the Debian Java mailinglist debian-java@lists.debian.org. Change requests should be sent as a bug to the java-common package. Virtual packages are created: &jc;, &j2c;, &jvm;, &j1r; and &j2r;. All Java code must be shipped as Java bytecode (*.class files, packaged in a *.jar archive) and with Architecture: all. Packages written in Java are separated in two categories: programs and libraries. Programs are intended to be run by end-users. Libraries are intended to help programs to run and to be used by developers. Both are shipped as Java bytecode (*.class files, packaged in a *.jar archive) and with an "Architecture: all" since Java bytecode is supposed to be portable. It may additionally be shipped as machine code, as produced for example by the GNU Compiler for Java, in a separate architecture-specific package. This policy does not yet address the issue of documentation (for instance HTML pages made with javadoc). Java virtual machines &must; provide &jvm; and depend on java-common. They can also provide the runtime environment that the package contains (&j1r; and/or &j2r;). If it does not provide the files itself it &must; depend on the needed runtime environment. They &should; use /etc/alternatives for the name 'java' if they are command-line compatible with the Sun's java program. They &should; have a CLASSPATH predefined which include the needed runtime environment. If a given source (like the JDK does) brings both a compiler and a virtual machine, you &may; name the compiler package xxxx-dev. Java compilers &must; provide &jc; and/or &j2c; and depend on java-common. They &must; also depend on the needed runtime environemnt (&j1r; and/or &j2r;). They &should; use /etc/alternatives for the name 'javac' if they are command-line compatible with Sun's JDK javac. They &should; have a CLASSPATH predefined to include the java core classes need for the compiler. Programs &must; have executable(s) in /usr/bin and be executable. They can be Java classes (using binfmt_misc) or wrappers. In any case, they &must; run without specific environment variables (see Policy 10.9), for instance CLASSPATH. They &must; respect the Policy rules for executables (for instance a manual page per executable, see Policy 13.1). If they have their own auxiliary classes, they &must; be in a jar file in /usr/share/java. The name of the jar &should; folow the same naming conventions as for libraries. Programs &must; depend on &jvm; and the needed runtime environment (&j1r; and/or &j2r;). There is no naming rules for programs, they are ordinary programs, from the user point of view. Libraries are not separated between developers (-dev) and users versions, since this is meaningless in Java. Java libraries packages &must; be named libXXX[version]-java (without the brackets), where the version part is optional and &should; only contain the necessary part. The version part &should; only be used to avoid naming colisions. The XXX part is the actual package name used in the text below. Their classes &must; be in jar archive(s) in the directory /usr/share/java, with the name packagename[-extraname]-fullversion.jar. The extraname is optional and used internaly within the package to separate the different jars provided by the package. The fullversion is the version of that jar file. In some cases that is not the same as the package version. Some package &must; also provide a symbolic link from packagename-extraname.jar to the most compatible version of the available packagename-extraname-version.jar files. Java libraries &must; depend on the needed runtime environment (&j1r; and/or &j2r;) but &should; not depend (only suggest) java-virtual-machine. All jar files &must; have a well-documented CLASSPATH, so that developers should know what to add to their wrappers. This applies only to libraries, not to the core classes provied by a the runtime environment. If the Java code depends on code written in a "native" language, for example Java Native Interface code, the compiled native code &should; be shipped in a separate architecture-specific package named libXXX[version]-jni. The package containing Java bytecode &should; depend on this package. There may be situations, such as with very small packages, where it is better to bundle the Java code and the native code together into a single package. Such packages should be architecture-specific and follow the usual libXXX[version]-java naming convention. About politics: packaging Java stuff changes nothing to the rules Debian uses to find if a program is free or not. Since there are not many free Java tools, keep in mind the following: If your source package can compile (correctly) only with non-free tools (the only free Java compilers seem to be guavac, gcj and jikes, it cannot go to main. If your package itself is free, it &must; go to contrib. If your binary package can run only with non-free virtual machines (the only free Java virtual machine seems to be kaffe - and the one included in libgcj), it cannot go to main. If your package itself is free, it &must; go to contrib. The following points are discussions about the policy, either because they have to be studied more, or are controversial. Name and existance of the repository. It was removed in the latest version. The symbolic links in /usr/share/java be made by a script instead, similar to the c-libraries. Core classes (java.*). More study needed. Sun's Community Source Licence. Can we use it? How? The 2.3 version of the text can be found here. All jars must have a good CLASSPATH documentation, but how should it be documented. The best solution is probably in some computer parsable format to make it even easier for the developer. It should exist some tool to parse this. How should it work? Should the tool also be used to create the necessary symbilic links needed by servlets under tomcat? Should there be a default classpath, similar to a repository? Which jars should be included in that? A standard and one optional part? If there are a default classpath (in the wrapper) how should it be overridden? How to check for a good enough jvm, and to select a proper one to use. Are /etc/alternatives not good enough? Should the jvm internal classes be possible to override entirely and how? Warning: These are just advices, they are not part of the policy. Be sure to manage all dependencies by hand in debian/control. Debian development tools cannot find them automatically like they do with C programs and libraries (or like dh_perl does it for Perl, a volunteer to write dh_java would be welcome). You can suppress many calls in debian/rules which are meaningless for Java, like dh_strip and dh_shlibdeps. Source package handling is painful, since most Java upstream programs come with .class files. I suggest to make a new .orig tarball after cleaning them, otherwise, dpkg-source will complain. Java properties files are probably better under /etc and flagged as configuration files (this will be integrated in the policy, one day).