using opensource code: noob

Hi,

did a search on this, didn't find the answer. If I want to use packages/classes that are open source out on the internet, do I need to download them to my my machine? Or could I just have an

importpackage com.mapinfo.coordsys;

statement in my code?

I was doing some searching, and found a post where someone said you had to have a directory structure; com\whatever\whatever, and the root directory needed to be in your classpath, but I didn't know if that was for pre-existing classes, or writing your own classes to put online.

thanks,

bp

[658 byte] By [badpersona] at [2007-11-26 20:00:42]