Hello,
"java" would be the preferred JRE in Fedora. The package
would have no
content, but it would have Requires on preferred Fedora JRE, currently
java-1.8.0-openjdk. This could be easily changed as default JRE changes.
The same is for other binary subpackages of "java", respectively.
All system packages would require subpackages of "java" as they do now
(unless there is good reason not to). Users that install "java" would
get latest JRE, which would be updated to new major versions as they
become default. Older JDKs would not be removed during update (unless
there is no maintainer and they are obsoleted as currently),
AFAIK nothing obsoletes a package just because it is orphaned…
but users
could remove them with "yum autoremove", unless something requires older
JDK or they installed it explicitly.
… but most won’t run (yum autoremove). In
effect, the vast majority of users upgrading from a previous Fedora version would end up
with two JDKs installed, one of them an old, unmaintained RPM.
Mirek