Stuart Roebuck wrote: > Great idea. > > Tomcat 4 a key offender in this respect - have any influence? >
Offender in terms of licensing? I would hope not :-). Actually, it was Sam Ruby that convinced me that putting JAR files into CVS is a "Bad Thing". I will let him make the detailed arguments when he has a chance, but the key problems are: * You always forget to update the stored JAR files * Nobody knows what version of the dependent JARs should be used * What happens if I have my own xyz.jar that I want to use instead of the packaged one? and on and on. On the other hand, I'm a huge believer in creating distributions that include all the relevant JAR files. On that note, the Tomcat binary distribution picks up everything you need except a JDK, and except for the JSSE classes (you wouldn't believe the paperwork it takes to do that one :-). And the Tomcat build process even lets you pick things like which XML parser to use, rather than forcing you to use whichever one was in the CVS tree. For Ant, the right strategy would be to publish builds of the "optional.jar" file, or portions of it, on the Jakarta web site whenever significant changes occur in between Ant releases. That way, people can go grab the stuff they need, without having to build it all. > > Stuart. > Craig McClanahan
