[OSM-dev] which Java Verison to use (1.6 vs. 1.5); was: Error compiling osmosis

[Andreas Kalsch]

It is OK that Osmosis supports just 1.6, because it has no UI (has it?). 
So there are 2 reasons:

- You use it more on servers with Linux, so 1.6 is supported.
- The user has the competence to deal with this kind of things, 
including setting up his own DB.

JOSM - in opposite - should be as easy as possible to use (= downloading 
and starting to edit), so that as many people as possible contribute to OSM.

So focus on new features and don't try to support ancient versions.

Best,

Andi


Brett Henderson schrieb:
> Sending this to dev because I'm curious to hear thoughts from the JOSM guys.
>
> I agree it would be nice to standardise but the reasons for the 
> difference as I understand it are:
> JOSM is an end user tool where wide platform support is necessary.  Java 
> 1.5 is more widely available than Java 1.6.  OSX in particular hasn't 
> had support for 1.6, not sure if that's changed yet.  JOSM is 
> maintaining compatibility with Java 1.5.  *However* it should be 
> possible to compile JOSM on Java 1.6, it just won't run on 1.5 if you do 
> so.  There may be some warnings around the use of the @Override 
> annotation (I don't know the details here) but I don't think these 
> should be show stoppers.
> Osmosis is newer than JOSM, and is less end-user focused.  I don't 
> support 1.5 because I'm using some newer features of the 1.6 platform.  
>  From memory, these are Java 2D libraries required for accurate polygon 
> support, concurrent libraries, and collection libraries.  Of these it 
> might be possible to support 1.5 with some additional effort but the 
> polygon support in particular is hard to do properly on 1.5 because 1.6 
> added "double" accuracy 2D calculations.
>
> Here's my suggestion.  OpenJDK is a Java 1.6 platform.  I assume that is 
> what Debian will provide out of the box.  Compile both JOSM and Osmosis 
> using this 1.6 platform.  They will both then run on the OpenJDK 
> provided by Debian.  Neither will run on older 1.5 JDKs.  You aren't 
> building binary distributions of JOSM for cross-platform use therefore 
> you don't need to support 1.5.
>
> 1.6 provides some very useful features, it has been released for around 
> 2 years now, and is supported on the vast majority of platforms out 
> there.  Supporting 1.5 just isn't a high priority for me.  With the open 
> source OpenJDK out there I was hoping the need to support ancient java 
> releases would be eliminated.
>
> Thoughts welcome.
> Brett
>
> Joerg Ostertag (OSM Tettnang/Germany) wrote:
>   
>> OK ...
>>
>>   so josm     doesn't want java 1.6
>> and osmosis doesn't want java 1.5
>>
>> This doesn't really make it easy to create debian packages out of these ...
>>
>> Couldn't we agree on one Version of Java for all OSM Software. This would 
>> macke packaging much easier for me.
>>
>> -
>>
>> Joerg
>>
>>
>> On Mittwoch 24 Dezember 2008, you wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> The minimum required java version for osmosis is 1.6.  You appear to be
>>> using version 1.5.
>>>     
>>>       
>
>
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