[clug] Why isn't Java popular on the Linux Desktop?

[Daniel Pittman]

steve jenkin <sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au> writes:
> Sam Couter wrote on 12/7/09 3:44 PM:
>
>>> One of the big distribution problems it faces in Debian, for example, is
>>> that most packaged library releases change ABI between versions, so
>>> release 1.0 and 1.1 are not compatible.
>> 
>> That's a problem with any language.
>
> Sorry to diverge the topic, but not quite right.
>
> Steve Landers in Perth created "StarKits" in Tcl around 2001. Gave papers in
> 2002/3.  They are a single file laid out as a filesystem, think
> zip/tar/cpio, containing the complete application - code, libraries,
> classes...

[...]

> Cute technology. I believe something not dissimilar is available in
> Perl.

PAR?  Yeah, it has that same set of features.

It doesn't address the problem, though: it just makes the "static linking" of
your specific versions of libraries less visible to the end user, as a
convenience.

If, for example, you had a security vulnerability in a library that a PAR or
StarKit package used, you still need to upgrade the library — only, now, you
*also* have to poke around *inside* the application as well as replacing the
single system-wide copy.[1]

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  ...or, count on the upstream developer to do it for you.

-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
               ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons