[OSM-dev] Josm Bookmarks WAS: JOSM plugin for direct serial read

[Nick Hill]

Hello Andreas

Hadn't thought about the issue of antiviruses ringing bells. If the format 
became established, antiviruses should ignore it.

AFAIK, only SUN Java 1.5+ will run Josm and I presume the free javac uses the 
same free unzip library as is used on GNU systems. I discovered this as my unzip 
library also works on self-extracting executables. So I don't expect problems 
with varying JREs with the method as a whole.

If antivirus programs posed a widespread problem, the file could of course also 
be offered with a plain exe extension for windows users, but that would sadly 
mask the fact the file is a cross-platform Java file so perhaps should be avoided.

I have read suggestions this method is hacky. I don't see how it is any more 
'hacky' than having self-extracting zip files. Making a jar file behave almost 
like a native windows application, even on systems which don't have Java 
pre-installed, whilst maintaining cross-platform compatibility, seems very 
worthwhile. A better solution would be for all windows systems to include a stub 
installer or full-blown SUN Java, but that requires co-operation by Microsoft to 
make using SUN Java easy. That is clearly unlikely.

Other suggestions tendered include using webstart. Webstart does not address 
this problem domain. Webstart does not run 'headless'. It does not bootstrap a 
windows system. It does not function on a windows system unless you already have 
some form of Java installed.


Andreas Brauchli wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-12-02 at 12:49 +0000, 80n wrote:
>>         I have proposed a solution to this. I discovered that you can
>>         append any rubbish
>>         to the beginning of a jar file without changing it's behaviour
>>         so long as that 
>>         'rubbish' doesn't contain the PKzip magic number. It is
>>         therefore possible to
>>         prepend a small (200k) windows executable to the front of a
>>         jar then call it
>>         .jar.exe. That executable can check for a suitable
>>         installation of java before 
>>         invoking the program, if necessary download & install the
>>         necessary version of
>>         Java. 'java -jar myapp.jar.exe' will work normally.
> 
> doesn't that make antiviruses ring bells?
> (1. because of the prepended executable code and
>  2. because of the double suffix ending in .exe)
> 
> do free java implementation/other java versions capable of running josm
> (if any at all) cope with this hack?
> 
> otherwise the idea sounds nice :)