On Jul 29, 2005, at 7:45 AM, Thomas Vatter wrote:
A nightmare would be if the system's Java
5 bits are older or newer than those required by the application. The
scenario with JRE files in a subdirectory solves this. Since these
files are only copied but not installed they do not interfere with a
possibly installed JRE. I can't see a problem with this approach.
You forget to factor in that Apple considers Java part of the
operating system. So they may update things in the operating system in
conjunction with things in Java 5 that would break older versions of
Java 5. In other words 10.4.3 update may change Java 5 (heck may even
include it) and Mac OS X enough that your version of Java 5 you
distribute won't work or will begin to fail. Apple's Java
implementation is rather intertwined with Cocoa framework among several
others. Regardless doing this isn't supported by Apple and isn't
allowed for under Apple software license, so the rest is academic.
Apple generally considers the Java framework like the Cocoa
framework. The Cocoa framework isn't designed for bundling by
third-parties nor is the Java framework. They don't want third-parties
distributing various version of the Cocoa framework, Apple wants to
manage it. The same holds true for Java framework. Third-parties are
expected to test against Mac OS X versions that they want to support
and by extension Cocoa framework feature/bug sets they want to support.
The same expectation holds for Java on Mac OS X. What is possible on
other platforms is unimportant in the face of this expectation and
model that Apple uses, it is what it is.
Personally I wish Apple would fully fix releases of Java updates
to Mac OS X updates (they have been inconsistent). In other words you
would only get Java updates as part of Mac OS X updates. I feel the
same way about how QuickTime releases are done. This would standardize
how developers tests against Mac OS X, you test against 10.x.y not
10.x.y + java update 1 + quicktime w.z. Obviously release train
alignment and time to market concerns have generally prevented them
from fully and consistently going this route.
-Shawn
