[josm-dev] Java 1.5 versus 1.6

[stefan at binaervarianz.de]

Hello from a Mac user.

I'm still using Mac OS X 10.4, meaning no Java 1.6.

While apple computers tend to stay around longer (meaning you actually can
still use a system more than 6 years old),
I clearly see why you want to drop support. Actually even Apple has
anounced to drop support for 10.4 soon.

Any computer not compatible with the new snow leopard (the ones with
PowerPC processor) are mostly not fast enough to allow editing of
bigger maps. Any computer who can update (those with Intel processor) are
either a 160 bucks away from a new OS, or need to jump through
some loops and install SoyLatte (a Java 1.6 backport for 10.4) to keep your
software working.

Well I'm fine with that solution. (I'm prefering the SoyLatte version).

The same discussion arouse an the mkgmap mailing list about a year ago.
They decided to keep mkgmap on 1.5, as they actually didn't need any 1.6
feature. But the used some in the splitter program and didn't hesitate
to force the 1.6 on that.

I would say: keep the last 1.5 version as a download option on the website,
maybe even give it updates if the osm API changes so it stays usable,
but switch to 1.6 if you need the features. I would be happy with that.
JOSM is feature complete to a point where a freezed version is totally fine
for users.

Greets.

Stefan


On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:25:51 +0100 (CET), Dirk Stöcker
<openstreetmap at dstoecker.de> wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010, Henry Loenwind wrote:
> 
>>> I would not care about that any more. Java 1.5 support will be dropped
>>> with next release and we have<  4% Java 5 users (actually I only see
>>> "page impressions", not "users"). Suggestion for these is to update.
>>
>> Update like in "buy a new pc"? Yeah, people will just love you ;)
> 
> Well, I still think Amiga is a very fine system, but I would never think 
> development must stall to support Amigas.
> 
>> Java 1.6 still is not available for all platforms that run 1.5. And it
>> seems that won't change---so with going to 1.6 you'd lock out all Mac
>> users but those with a 64-bit Intel processor. In my opinion its still
>> too early to lock out all those 32bit Intel processor (e.g. Core Duo)
>> users without any real reason.
> 
> There are reasons:
> - The server can no longer compile 5 only, as JAVA 6 has only something
>    like a JAVA 5 compatibility mode, which does not always work.
> - We already require features of JAVA 6 to fix certain issues not
>    solveable with 5.
> - We have less than 4% JAVA 5 users and most of them very likely only
need
>    to upgrade their java installation. I doubt we really have lots of
MacOS
>    users at all.
> 
> Altogether we have more people using ONE old version 1788 than people 
> using Java 5. So either they update their Java version or the stop 
> updating JOSM.
> 
> Ciao