Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Bruce Byfield]

Anders Breindahl wrote:
Hello list. I follow up on this discussion, now as the article's been 
released. Here it may be found:
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/22/204244&tid=93

I think this article is very well-written. I also am satisfied with your 
quoting of me. However, the comments on NewsForge raises a question in my 
head: How effective is Java components?

The comments from the readers vary between "the days of slow Java are over" to 
"bloated, huge memory footstamp, buggy". I am no technical expert yet, but I 
do realise the threat of OOo dependencies on Java.
Therefore, I have come to the point where I ask the ones who know the 
technical details. I believe that would be the guys who hang around 
debian-openoffice.

I ask you kindly to estimate the effectiveness of the Java parts of the OOo 
code. Are they written well, do you imagine that the use of Java has eased 
the development of code, and how does the general result end up performing?
Do you furthermore believe that -- from a technical point of view -- that Java 
should be used in OOo, or would/will it bloat the user's system too much?
Would any problems be helped off using GCJ rather than Sun's own environment?
First, my apologies for not mentioning the release of the article. The 
article was Slashdotted, and picked up in several other places, and in 
the flood of replies, I forgot to mention it to this list. All I can say 
is that my intentions were good.

Second, if anyone takes on this request, I would be interested in 
hearing the results. I'm already planning a couple of followup articles, 
and, done throughly, this might be another one.

Thanks,
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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Matt Price]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 04:36:34PM +0100, Clive Menzies wrote:
> On (30/03/05 16:16), Anders Breindahl wrote:
> > Hello list. I follow up on this discussion, now as the article's been 
> > released. Here it may be found:
> > http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/22/204244&tid=93
> Good article!

just want to second that -- it's a very high calibre writing,
thanks for your excellent reporting/advocacy.
matt


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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Clive Menzies]

On (30/03/05 16:16), Anders Breindahl wrote:
> Hello list. I follow up on this discussion, now as the article's been 
> released. Here it may be found:
> http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/22/204244&tid=93
Good article!

>From a parochial point of view, I share the concerns expressed that this
will slow the adoption of free software.  Along with Firefox and
Thunderbird, OpenOffice is a 'killer' application; running on all three
operating systems most used on PC's, these applications provide a
valuable first step towards introducing free software where the main
proprietory vendors dominate.

Whilst Sun are to be applauded for their support for OOo to date, their
use of it to leverage deployment of Java seems shortsighted at best,
cynical, at worst.

There are instances where non-free software is required to replace
specific functionality of a proprietory alternative but these instances
should be at the margin not in a main stream application, like the only
viable free office suite, OOo.

[snip]

Early resolution is vital; proprietory competitors will welcome any
delay.

Regards

Clive

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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Anders Breindahl]

Hello list. I follow up on this discussion, now as the article's been 
released. Here it may be found:
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/22/204244&tid=93

I think this article is very well-written. I also am satisfied with your 
quoting of me. However, the comments on NewsForge raises a question in my 
head: How effective is Java components?

The comments from the readers vary between "the days of slow Java are over" to 
"bloated, huge memory footstamp, buggy". I am no technical expert yet, but I 
do realise the threat of OOo dependencies on Java.
Therefore, I have come to the point where I ask the ones who know the 
technical details. I believe that would be the guys who hang around 
debian-openoffice.

I ask you kindly to estimate the effectiveness of the Java parts of the OOo 
code. Are they written well, do you imagine that the use of Java has eased 
the development of code, and how does the general result end up performing?
Do you furthermore believe that -- from a technical point of view -- that Java 
should be used in OOo, or would/will it bloat the user's system too much?
Would any problems be helped off using GCJ rather than Sun's own environment?

Kind regards, Anders Breindahl.

On Sunday 06 March 2005 04:17, Bruce Byfield wrote:
> Anders Breindahl wrote:
> > P. S.: Bruce, would you post a link to me, when you're done with your
> > article?
>
> I'll write to the debian-openoffice list when it appears.
>
> However, in case I forget, the article is being done for Newsforge, and
> I plan on finishing it within the week. That probably means that it will
> be published in a couple of weeks.


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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Rene Engelhard]

Hi,

Am Sonntag, 6. März 2005 04:20 schrieb Bruce Byfield:
> Rene Engelhard wrote:
> > This is my comment. Probably not suitable for a official quote but the
> > comment of one of the two maintainers.
>
> Would you mind being quoted, or at least cited as the source? Your
> comments will be a good example of the problems that the situation causes.

If you think they were forumlated good, ok, take it :)

> To put it mildly, it sounds to me as though your work as the maintainer
> is suddenly much harder.

Right...

Especially if you are not allowed to build with non-free stuff (Sun/Blackdown 
Java)

Regards,

Rene
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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[eric.bachard]

Hi,
I'm a bit out of topic, but I think I can give some elements of answer...
Josh Triplett a écrit :
Bruce Byfield wrote:

And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other
comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.
I'm not a Debian maintainer, but I do builds for Linux PPC, on Debian 
sid, for the french OOo project (as "laboratory" ).

The builds I do are : 1.1.x and 1.9.xx, in both en-US, fr and de, and 
I'm using j2sdk1.3.1 from Blackdown, but 1.4.2 from IBM (not free) works.

Some additional information, as the person who originally did the work
to make Java optional around version 1.1.0.  OO.o uses Java heavily, and
will unfortunately probably continue doing so. 
Yes, and last changes are in this direction... (wizards, for example, 
needs now Java).

Fixing it was a matter of conditionalizing all the usage of Java
functionality within the code, and changing the build system to use
other non-Java tools for working with XML files.
A lot of code actually needs java...
I personally don't mind that OO.o has support for Java plugins, and that
that support is disabled if you don't build with Java.  What's annoying
is the addition of Java-based functionality to the core of OO.o, such
that major pieces of functionality are unavailable without Java (and due
to lack of testing, those pieces of functionality often break the
non-Java build).
Yes, sure. I have made the choice of "with java" builds, because the use 
of java actually improve really how OOo1.9.xx builds and work.

As soon as gcj-4.0 works, I sure will change. At least for compare.
  Getting the OO.o 2.0 prereleases to build without Java
is quite an endeavor; Chris Halls and others are working on that, and I
don't know what the status of that work is, but I know that it is due to
similar issues: unconditional use of Java functionality throughout OO.o.
If this can help you, the actual status is :
I have a ~ complete functionnal 1.9.79 Linux PPC ( as .deb ) without 
java version, and I think Chris has too (or even better, probably). The 
actual status of this version is unstable, close from beta.

I'm actually both trying to build 1.9.83 with Blackdown j2sdk1.3.1 *and* 
without. The big problem is that 1.9.xx sources actually are needing 
1.4.1 (minimum) j2sdk, and some Sun engineers help me to change this, to 
adapt the build for j2sdk1.3.1.

The official choice is : for OOo2.0, just j2sdk1.3.1 must be sufficient 
(not exactly the case yet).

FYI, I have always some modules non building, like wizards,xmlhelp, and 
probably binfilters, but the work is actually in progres, and I hope 
soon to solve this. Some issue are in good way to be solved.


One key issue is that all we can generally do is conditionally disable
things; actually *replacing* all the missing functionality with non-Java
equivalents would be a full-time job.
Absolutly.  IMHO, I think this is just a question of time : gcj seems to 
be a really good solution, but actually gcj-4.0 is needed, and for Linux 
PPC, gcj-4.0 is broken in experimental.  I'm just waiting for test it... :-)

It should probably already work on Linux Intel (not the time to test, sorry)
For example, Caolan Mac Namara ( and others, certainly ) is/are doing an 
enormous work with gcj, to make it working, replacing a non free sdk.


I don't think the OpenOffice.org developers are really intentionally
trying to keep OO.o requiring Java;
yes :-)
HTH
Regards,
eric bachard
--
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French OpenOffice.org Community contributor (build of french releases 
for Linux PPC and Mac OS X / X11)
See : 

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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Josh Triplett]

Bruce Byfield wrote:
> I'm working on an article about the decision to use Java in
> OpenOffice.org. The article will include both positive and negative
> opinions, and talk about how it affects repackagers of OOo, and how they
> are planning on handling the situation.
>
> If possible, I'd like to get a quote about how Debian plans to respond.
> By putting together a Java-free package? By using a free implementation
> of Java? By some other means? Since Debian is a distribution that is
> more dedicated than most to free software, I'm especially eager to hear
> how it is approaching the issue.
>
> And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other
> comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.

Some additional information, as the person who originally did the work
to make Java optional around version 1.1.0.  OO.o uses Java heavily, and
will unfortunately probably continue doing so.  At the time, Java was
thought to be optional, in that there was a compile-time option to
disable it; however, since that support was never really used, it was
broken in a number of places for quite some time due to new
functionality that required Java and hadn't used the conditional.
Fixing it was a matter of conditionalizing all the usage of Java
functionality within the code, and changing the build system to use
other non-Java tools for working with XML files.

I personally don't mind that OO.o has support for Java plugins, and that
that support is disabled if you don't build with Java.  What's annoying
is the addition of Java-based functionality to the core of OO.o, such
that major pieces of functionality are unavailable without Java (and due
to lack of testing, those pieces of functionality often break the
non-Java build).  Getting the OO.o 2.0 prereleases to build without Java
is quite an endeavor; Chris Halls and others are working on that, and I
don't know what the status of that work is, but I know that it is due to
similar issues: unconditional use of Java functionality throughout OO.o.

One key issue is that all we can generally do is conditionally disable
things; actually *replacing* all the missing functionality with non-Java
equivalents would be a full-time job.

I don't think the OpenOffice.org developers are really intentionally
trying to keep OO.o requiring Java; I think they just aren't
particularly interested in the ability to run without it, and since they
know Java well, they often turn on it for new developments.  Developers
have said before that they are not averse to making such functionality
optional, just that they aren't likely to do that work themselves.

In the ideal scenario, we could just keep Java entirely optional, such
that you only need it if you want to script OO.o with Java, just as you
only need Python if you want to script OO.o with Python.  However, we
may end up having to make the included Java functionality work with one
of the Free JDKs instead, if that ends up being easier.

- Josh Triplett


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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Bruce Byfield]

Rene Engelhard wrote:
This is my comment. Probably not suitable for a official quote but the
comment of one of the two maintainers.
Would you mind being quoted, or at least cited as the source? Your 
comments will be a good example of the problems that the situation causes.

To put it mildly, it sounds to me as though your work as the maintainer 
is suddenly much harder.

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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Bruce Byfield]

Anders Breindahl wrote:
P. S.: Bruce, would you post a link to me, when you're done with your article?
I'll write to the debian-openoffice list when it appears.
However, in case I forget, the article is being done for Newsforge, and 
I plan on finishing it within the week. That probably means that it will 
be published in a couple of weeks.

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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Anders Breindahl]

Hi Rene and others,

I truly concur. I find it increasingly worrying that Sun to some extent 
considers Java to be okay for a Free office-suite. I also spot the commercial 
interest that Sun might have, and I think that this makes OOo less optimal 
for the Free Software community --  including Debian, whose packaging policy 
demands the software to be Free.
I feel, that OOo should not compromise on their being Free, no matter what 
their sponsors are.
Sun, on the other hand, should release their JVM to the public under Free 
Software-acceptable terms. Under a GPL-compatible license, that is.

Why not become a member of the Free Software world, instead of just embracing 
it? It worked for Netscape, wo why not Sun?

I wouldn't want this to be an official statement -- just an opinion from one 
of the users.
Regards, Anders Breindahl.

P. S.: Bruce, would you post a link to me, when you're done with your article?

On Saturday 05 March 2005 12:39, Rene Engelhard wrote:
> That's what we want to do in future when it is possible; gcj-4.0
> (in experimental currently) can build many parts of OpenOffice.org after
> some patches for gcj support were made. (No idea about interpreting with
> gij, though)
>
> However, that would mean we'll get a dependency on the experimental
> libgcc1 so the package won't be installable (and not buildable anywayn
> since we need gcj-4.0) in plain unstable.
>
> Not fine. Well... For a upload to experimental we probably could try but
> it's really suboptimal.
>


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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Rene Engelhard]

Hi,

Bruce Byfield wrote:
> If possible, I'd like to get a quote about how Debian plans to respond. 
> By putting together a Java-free package? By using a free implementation 

This is what we currently do for 1.1.x.

> of Java? By some other means? Since Debian is a distribution that is 

That's what we want to do in future when it is possible; gcj-4.0
(in experimental currently) can build many parts of OpenOffice.org after some
patches for gcj support were made. (No idea about interpreting with
gij, though)

However, that would mean we'll get a dependency on the experimental
libgcc1 so the package won't be installable (and not buildable anywayn since we 
need gcj-4.0) in plain unstable.

Not fine. Well... For a upload to experimental we probably could try but
it's really suboptimal.

> And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other 
> comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.

This is my comment. Probably not suitable for a official quote but the
comment of one of the two maintainers.

Grüße/Regards,

René
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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[Sam Hiser]

On Fri, 2005-03-04 at 19:50 -0500, David A. Cobb wrote:
> Bruce Byfield wrote:
> 
> > Hi:
> >
> > I'm working on an article about the decision to use Java in
> > OpenOffice.org. The article will include both positive and negative
> > opinions, and talk about how it affects repackagers of OOo, and how they
> > are planning on handling the situation.
> >
> > If possible, I'd like to get a quote about how Debian plans to 
> > respond. By putting together a Java-free package? By using a free 
> > implementation of Java? By some other means? Since Debian is a 
> > distribution that is more dedicated than most to free software, I'm 
> > especially eager to hear how it is approaching the issue.
> >
> > And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other 
> > comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> I discovered that, the way the cat learned to swim [ got tossed in the 
> pond ].
> My solution was to install the un-free Sun JDK; but I'm not happy with 
> the solution.
> 
> Java is, according to OOo, 'optional.' However, without it, significant 
> things like the database interface don't work.
> 
> I believe the best solution, one that would benefit the whole 
> free-software community, would be to figure out how to get OOo to work 
> with, say, kaffe or some other JVM. But I don't expect that to be easy, 
> and I don't expect much help from the OO org -- remember that Sun ist 
> their major sponsor.
> 
> This is one more sad result of the way Sun tries to straddle the fence 
> and be free but not always free.
> 
> -- 
> David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate
> "By God's Grace, I am a Christian man; by my actions a great sinner." -- The 
> Way of a Pilgrim: R.French, Tr.
> Life is too short to tolerate crappy software!


David-

I concur strongly with your thoughts.  Keep in mind that yours &
Debian's is the right and constructive response: how can we replace this
functionality with not-Java?  This is the challenge to be inferred by
their actions.

The project has stated in the past that they would use Java where only
where there were no alternative functionality available; however the
increasing dependencies now make those statements seem disingenuous.

-Sam

> 
> 
> 
> 


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Re: Java and OpenOffice.org

[David A. Cobb]

Bruce Byfield wrote:
Hi:
I'm working on an article about the decision to use Java in
OpenOffice.org. The article will include both positive and negative
opinions, and talk about how it affects repackagers of OOo, and how they
are planning on handling the situation.
If possible, I'd like to get a quote about how Debian plans to 
respond. By putting together a Java-free package? By using a free 
implementation of Java? By some other means? Since Debian is a 
distribution that is more dedicated than most to free software, I'm 
especially eager to hear how it is approaching the issue.

And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other 
comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.

Thanks,
I discovered that, the way the cat learned to swim [ got tossed in the 
pond ].
My solution was to install the un-free Sun JDK; but I'm not happy with 
the solution.

Java is, according to OOo, 'optional.' However, without it, significant 
things like the database interface don't work.

I believe the best solution, one that would benefit the whole 
free-software community, would be to figure out how to get OOo to work 
with, say, kaffe or some other JVM. But I don't expect that to be easy, 
and I don't expect much help from the OO org -- remember that Sun ist 
their major sponsor.

This is one more sad result of the way Sun tries to straddle the fence 
and be free but not always free.

--
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate
"By God's Grace, I am a Christian man; by my actions a great sinner." -- The 
Way of a Pilgrim: R.French, Tr.
Life is too short to tolerate crappy software!

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Java and OpenOffice.org

[Bruce Byfield]

Hi:
I'm working on an article about the decision to use Java in
OpenOffice.org. The article will include both positive and negative
opinions, and talk about how it affects repackagers of OOo, and how they
are planning on handling the situation.
If possible, I'd like to get a quote about how Debian plans to respond. 
By putting together a Java-free package? By using a free implementation 
of Java? By some other means? Since Debian is a distribution that is 
more dedicated than most to free software, I'm especially eager to hear 
how it is approaching the issue.

And if anyone on the Debian OpenOffice Team would care to make other 
comments, I'd appreciate hearing them, by all means.

Thanks,
--
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http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
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Re: java and openoffice.org 1.0-3

[Jan-Hendrik Palic]

Hi Again! 

On Wed, May 08, 2002 at 02:17:01PM -0400, Jack Howarth wrote:
>   Now that I have the font issue sorted out I decided to
>test the latest debian ppc jdk packages that Stephen Zander
>released...
>
>deb http://people.debian.org/~gibreel/debian sid  main non-free
>deb-src  http://people.debian.org/~gibreel/debian sid  main non-free

first, thnx for these apt-get lines, I did not know them :)
Just I drop the java from scratch! :)

>He used a new build of j2sdk 1.3.1 which I did that is linked
>against a -fPIC libXm.a so that openoffice java applet support 
>works. I tested this against Kevin Hendrick's OpenOffice 1.0
>build. I am having trouble getting the debian openoffice.org
>package to do the same. I noticed that it never asked me
>where the java environment was when I ran openoffice as a user
>the first time. Do you guys have java disabled? The location
>of Stephen's java enviroment in his package is...
>
>/usr/lib/j2se/1.3

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ less /etc/openoffice/autoresponse.conf 
[ENVIRONMENT]
INSTALLATIONMODE=INSTALL_WORKSTATION
INSTALLATIONTYPE=WORKSTATION
DESTINATIONPATH=/.openoffice
OUTERPATH=
LOGFILE=
LAGUAGELIST=01

[JAVA]
JavaSupport=none


What do you have there? 

>Shouldn't we have this path checked in the openoffice.org packages
>and java enabled if it is present? I tried running setup from
>.openoffice in my account but I was only presented with the choice
>of deinstalling it from my account. Should I deinstall it and run
>setup again so I can select the j2re? Thanks in advance for any
>hints.

For me, I would be pleased, if we drop java completly .. :) It is
non-free, and non-free sucks :)

But, I think, you are right, if some has java installed on his system,
we should detect it and enable or asking, whether to enable java or not.

Chris/Peter ... this could be realized with debconf, I think!

Regards
Jan

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java and openoffice.org 1.0-3

[Jack Howarth]

Hello,
   Now that I have the font issue sorted out I decided to
test the latest debian ppc jdk packages that Stephen Zander
released...

deb http://people.debian.org/~gibreel/debian sid  main non-free
deb-src  http://people.debian.org/~gibreel/debian sid  main non-free

He used a new build of j2sdk 1.3.1 which I did that is linked
against a -fPIC libXm.a so that openoffice java applet support 
works. I tested this against Kevin Hendrick's OpenOffice 1.0
build. I am having trouble getting the debian openoffice.org
package to do the same. I noticed that it never asked me
where the java environment was when I ran openoffice as a user
the first time. Do you guys have java disabled? The location
of Stephen's java enviroment in his package is...

/usr/lib/j2se/1.3

Shouldn't we have this path checked in the openoffice.org packages
and java enabled if it is present? I tried running setup from
.openoffice in my account but I was only presented with the choice
of deinstalling it from my account. Should I deinstall it and run
setup again so I can select the j2re? Thanks in advance for any
hints.
   Jack


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