Bug#504425: Please fix these packaging problems

[Onkar Shinde]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kumar Appaiah
<a.kumar at alumni.iitm.ac.in> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 10:48:16AM +0530, Onkar Shinde wrote:
>> > Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
>> >   at net.sf.jftp.gui.base.StatusPanel.<init>(StatusPanel.java:79)
>> >   at net.sf.jftp.JFtp.init(JFtp.java:180)
>> >   at net.sf.jftp.JFtp.<init>(JFtp.java:166)
>> >   at net.sf.jftp.JFtp.main(JFtp.java:574)
>> >
>> > I haven't tried debugging into this, but I guess jftp uses some swing
>> > classes which don't work with java-gcj.
>>
>> I tried only with Sun JRE and OpenJDK. But I still believe it is
>> better to not hard code the path. If at some points GCJ implements all
>> the Swing classes used by jftp it will automatically start working. We
>> won't have to keep watch on if GCJ or any other Free JRE is good
>> enough to run jftp and then change the jftp startup script
>> accordingly.
>> Another point of view is that GCJ developers may get some help with
>> bugs about certain app not working with it.
>
> I disagree with this, as this logic is flawed. From a user's
> perspective, if I want to use jftp, I should be able to install jftp
> and type jftp, and it should run, and not expect me to switch to an
> alternative JRE. The case you mention is appropriate if there is an
> application which runs with several runtime environments. However, in
> this case, if you expect me to keep switching JREs (I may want to use
> jftp but gcj for all other stuff), your solution won't work.

Ok. This makes sense now. Thanks for providing this point of view.
By the way, now that we know that jftp works with openjdk as well as
Sun JRE do you think the startup script should be modified
accordingly. I believe java-wrappers may be helpful in this regard but
I myself have never used it.
Or are you against this as Sun JRE is in non-free?

> Thanks for all the suggestions, though. The package has got a well
> needed cleanup because of them.

I am glad I could help. :-)


Onkar