[mapserver-users] Which Java JDK?

[David Graham]

Paul Ramsey wrote:

>Java 1.1 only. For whatever sad reason (*cough* MicroSoft *cough*) Java
>in browsers never advanced past Java 1.1. Which in some ways is nice,
>because there is not a huge mixed set of Java versions out there to
>worry about (*cough* ignoring VM implementation issues *cough*).
>
>
Well it is true that Windows is frozen at a Java 1.1 version somewhere 
between 1.1.4 and 1.1.7  with some features up to 1.1.7 but others not 
there.  It was basically frozen when Microsoft started introducing 
Microsoft only JVM extensions.  Sun sued Microsoft.  The result of the 
settlement is that they had to release a patch to the JVM that rolled 
out the Microsoft extensions.  They also could not license any future 
versions of Java.  Hense microsoft is stuck.  They totaly dropped 
support for there J++ development environment, and pushed Visual Basic.

But if you wish to develope a java Applet to run on the web in the 
future, you might as well use Java 1.2 or 1.3 and have the end user 
download the Java 2 pluggin.  That is because Windows XP ships with no 
Java at all.  So all new Windows XP users will be downloading a Java 
pluggin.  It only makes sense to encourage them to download the latest 
Java pluggin.

See related bias article on the Microsoft web site.

http://www.microsoft.com/java/issues/openletter.htm

Dave Graham
dgraham at i3.com