RE: TC 4.0 RPM Packaging - WAS: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Apache Tomcat 4.0 Fina l Release

[GOMEZ Henri <hg...@slib.fr>]

><I-am-not-a-lawyer>
>Although there's no technical challenge to doing this, the licensing
>permission becomes much more murky.  The standard "permission to
>redistribute" paragraph on the other JAR files talks about packaging
>inside something with which you are adding value -- and it's 
>not obvious
>that your proposed approach would qualify, where it's pretty 
>obvious that
>the value add in the single-download approach is a complete application
>that includes functionality requiring those JARs.
></I-am-not-a-lawyer>

The whole problem is there is just too many non OSS 
packages in TC 4.0 and that brake RPM policies.

And we're speaking about packaging an Apache Product, 
not a M$ tool and people used to see Apache 110% OSS.

>In general, though, how would making two RPMs rather than one 
>satisfy the
>"RPM packing requirements" rules any better?  If the JARs are 
>not supposed
>to be packaged in the primary RPM, why is having them in a separate RPM
>OK?

We were speaking about the possibility to have the required jars 
outside TC 4.0 in an unique tarball which could be used in primary
TC 4.0 RPM or build into a second.

Having a second RPM, will clearly indicate to users that this stuff IS 
MANDATORY and a PRE-REQUISITE to build or use TC 4.0

>Personally, I'd lean a little further on the side of the poor 
>user whom we
>force to go through incredible machinations to install and use a binary
>distribution ...

That's why some people works on packaging, allowing poor users to
have just to type rpm -Uvh tomcat-xxx.noarch.rpm and have all the
stuff magically installed and working.

Personally, I'd like to see a more modular approach of TC 4.0 build,
allowing a diet TC 4.0 without any requirements on non OSS software.

If JSSE is still required for native HTTP/SSL in TC 3.2/3.3/4.0 
but users could still Apache + mod_ssl + mod_jk/webapp to have a 
100% OSS SSL solutions and that one could be dropped.

BTW, till we find a solution to the externals jars problems, 
having for example a tomcat-4.0-supplimental.tar.gz located 
at jakarta.apache.org, we'll have to wait for the RPM.

I'm sure you could find a Sun Layer which will find an 
acceptable solution ;)