They do the same for apache itself ( probably not as bad ) - every distribution has its own "FHS-standard" way of placing the config files and modules and its own variations to make it incompatible with other distros.
It is a common practice for all distributions to do this for almost all packages ( kde, apache, sendmail, etc ).
IMO it's not a problem with fedora - but with tomcat ( and with many other open source projects ). We can at least provide a standard layout
and some basic requirements ( like passing the unit tests and some load tests ), and have some official RPM distribution for rpm-based linux.
We do it for windows - why not for linux ?
Costin
Steve Raeburn wrote:
Excuse me for pitching in. I thought it was worth pointing out that the Apache 1.1 License specifically prohibits distributing derivative works using the name Tomcat.
* 4. The names "The Jakarta Project", "Tomcat", and "Apache Software * * Foundation" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived * * from this software without prior written permission. For written * * permission, please contact <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. *
If Fedora is distributing a derivative work and calling it Tomcat, then they are in breach of the license (IMHO, IANAL).
If the Fedora guys are doing something you're unhappy with, then I hope they would respond to a friendly, informal approach. If they are unresponsive, then I would consider kicking this up to the board for a more formal approach.
Of course, if you can also make it easier for Fedora to use the official TC releases, then that would be great too.
I'll go back to lurking now :-)
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Costin Manolache Sent: May 16, 2004 5:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Fedora "tomcat"
Remy Maucherat wrote:
It is very nice they are bundling java tools and tomcat -
but I thing
it is a big problem ( for tomcat developers, fedora users
and tomcat
users ) that they distribute such a badly modified tomcat
( and call
it tomcat)
But for a daemon, which is often more complex and needs to
be really
reliable, it would need more time to mature :(
People using Fedora and Tomcat 4.1.27 will not know that what they're using is an imature technology because of GCJ and because fedora messed up the layout of tomcat. They'll think it's tomcat that is a problem.
I don't think it's a RedHat or Fedora issue - they are
probably trying
to do what's best for their project ( fedora ). I don't
know of they
are intentionally trying to create "lockin" by having their own variation or just thing they know better how tomcat layout
should look
like - but the real question is if we should care about it and do anything about it.
I have no doubt that other distributions will follow
RedHat example and
start to include their own layouts and changes - look at
httpd example
( you can hardly find 2 distributions to place the conf or htdocs files in the same place ). Well, that's probably more rant for my weblog..
Good point.
If the release manager could take this extra work and
include an RPM -
or at least we could point to Henri's RPMs - and then we
could make it
clear that if a distribution wants to bundle tomcat, they
should use
the official RPM or something that is equivalent in layout, file permission, scripts, etc.
How hard would it be to automate it ? The problem is that the script must be run from Windows to
generate the
installer.
Long back we had something part of the build.xml to generate both RPM and solaris PKG ( don't know if this was before or after having tomcat in apache ). It's not very hard - if you have cygwin I think it's doable even on windows.
The real hard part is agreeing on a layout and pushing for this to happen - i.e. making it clear in the web site that a distro that doesn't follow the layout shouldn't be used, and providing alternative RPMs for people.
Any standard layout is ok for me - I allways preffered the /opt model ( Apple is using something similar AFAIK for applications, so is windows), but linux distros have this stupid FHS standard that allows them to put files in almost any place - but excludes /opt model.
I think any layout is good - as long as we can tell people "look in /etc/tomcat/jk2.properties" instead of "try to find where your distribution installed tomcat config files". Or "place your webapps files in /var/tomcat/webapps/XXX". Or write additional RPMs that install different modules automatically.
Probably this can't be enforced ( we don't have any
trademark on the
name ), but we can at least mention somewhere that what they distribute is not actually tomcat. I see this as a fork
using the same
name as the original product.
Yes, I think the ASF has very little control of the usage
in most cases.
We do control the website and it can be used to inform people and distribute the "right thing". I know we give up control over the code and apparently the name ( I am not very sure how they call their modified version "tomcat", but I assume we have no trademark ).
Apache ( and many other open source projects ) don't seem to have the will or care about how their software is distributed or about the resulting fragmentation and support problems.
Sun does provide a RPM and .tgz that works on all distributions I tried. If the JDK itself can be made cross-distribution, I
don't see
why we couldn't have a binary package that could be
installed on all
distributions. I think there are even tools to convert
from .rpm to
.deb and .tgz - to support the other package formats.
True, their stuff works on every distribution.
It is absurd to have one package for each variant using RPM, with different layouts and content.
Indeed :(
The issue has been around forever, which means that the
vendors haven't
done much to solve the issue. And since all Linus cares
about is the
kernel ;) (good thing some unifying has been going on in the UI department, otherwise, I can't imagine the mess it would be ;) )
Linus cares about the kernel - we should care about tomcat :-)
On all distributions I know, the kernel is in /boot, modules in /lib/modules/VERSION, the start sequence is the same, etc.
But what you are saying is the essence of the problem and missunderstanding - the "vendor" for tomcat is ASF, not Fedora. All commercial vendors I know distribute their own packages ( RPM or install shield or whatever ) - they don't let re-distributors sell a completely modified package with the same name as the original. If security or stability problems are found - they'll be attributed to tomcat and apache.
People confuse what "vendor" means - it should be the author of the software, not agregators that take many packages and sell them togheter.
Costin
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