Java apps

[Jonathan Lange]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 7:18 PM, Federico <federicotg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
> Suppose somebody uploads a Java JAR file (executable via "java -jar
> myapp.jar"). Is the automated packaging process going to guess the
> "default-jre" dependency and the execution command line?
> I read in the spec there's a use case where the uploader will be able
> to review those guesses. Is that already possible?
>

Hi Federico,

At the moment, we're deploying something that is aimed at binary C &
C++ applications. It won't be smart enough to automatically package
JAR files. However, doing so would be a great idea, and should be a
straightforward matter of adding a JAR backend to pkgme[1]. Such a
backend would probably work along the lines you suggest.

There's definitely an option in the spec[2] to review the guesses that
pkgme makes. We're not 100% sure that we're going to actually do that.
It seems like a good idea to me, but maybe it won't help much and will
only complicate the UI.

Our plan[3] at the moment is to get what we have actually up and
running, and then learn from that & quickly iterate.

Hope this helps,
jml

PS. For those just joining in, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AppDevelopers
is a good launching point to all of the work that we're doing to make
app developer's lives easier.

[1] http://pkgme.net/
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AutomagicBinaryPackaging
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AutomagicBinaryPackaging/ImplementationPlan