The (dark) future of Java on desktop

Vincent Privat vincent.privat at gmail.com
Mon Apr 16 18:52:09 UTC 2018


Indeed, I think the JOSM message of the day in September won't be exactly
polite against Oracle!

2018-04-16 20:44 GMT+02:00 Jo <winfixit at gmail.com>:

> Good news! Who needs Oracle anyway :-)
>
> Polyglot
>
> 2018-04-16 20:36 GMT+02:00 Vincent Privat <vincent.privat at gmail.com>:
>
>> Hello,
>> I got in contact with Jiri Vanek. He might be our saviour.
>> As some of you may know, he's the one behind IcedTea-Web (ITW: the free &
>> open-source implementation of Java WebStart in the IcedTea project):
>> https://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/IcedTea-Web
>>
>> The project is still actively developed (the 1.8 version is in progress).
>> http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea-web/
>>
>> Last year, Jiri added support for Windows, which I validated with the
>> RedHat build.
>> Jiri's also part of the AdoptOpenJdk initiative which aimes to provide a
>> build farm of OpenJDK with certified binaries on all platforms:
>> https://adoptopenjdk.net/releases.html
>>
>> If I understood correctly, these builds are going to provide JavaFX and
>> ITW
>> once the version 1.8 is finished!
>>
>> So we have to test ITW on Windows and macOS to make sure it works with
>> Java
>> 10 and early builds of Java 11. Then we'll have to check if it still works
>> once Oracle completely removes Java WebStart (I don't know the impacts it
>> could have on ITW).
>>
>> I'm currently trying to build & test ITW on Windows.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Vincent
>>
>> 2018-04-11 20:41 GMT+02:00 Vincent Privat <vincent.privat at gmail.com>:
>>
>> > One month already and I still don't know what to do regarding WebStart.
>> > I found out this: https://developers.redhat.com/
>> products/openjdk/download/
>> > Red Hat is providing an implementation of OpenJDK 8 on Windows
>> containing:
>> > - OpenJDK
>> > - OpenJFX
>> > - WebStart based on IcedTea-Web
>> > - An auto-update feature (a small simple script registered to Windows
>> Task
>> > Scheduler)
>> >
>> > The good news:
>> > - This is exactly what we would need for JDK 11.
>> > - I tested it and it works perfectly. We have nothing to change in JOSM
>> to
>> > make it work with this runtime.
>> >
>> > The bad news:
>> > - It is only available to Java developers. A (free) RedHat account is
>> > required, and it is forbidden to redistribute it.
>> > - there is a version of Java 9 but it does only contain OpenJDK (thus it
>> > is useless)
>> > - there is no macOS runtime
>> >
>> > Does someone on this list has a professionnal RedHat account, or know
>> > someone there? I'd like to know if we can hope to see RedHat releasing
>> > OpenJDK 11 it as a public runtime, free or charge and not requiring a
>> user
>> > account, which would contain the same components as their OpenJDK 8
>> > version. This way we would only have to tell people to uninstall their
>> > Oracle runtime and install the Red Hat runtime instead.
>> >
>> >
>> > 2018-03-10 18:05 GMT+01:00 Vincent Privat <vincent.privat at gmail.com>:
>> >
>> >> If we were to abandon AWT/Swing, migrating to SWT might be another
>> >> option. I don't think it would be easy, but at least it's actively
>> >> maintained: https://www.openhub.net/p/swt/contributors/summary
>> >>
>> >> 2018-03-09 10:40 GMT+01:00 Dirk Stöcker <openstreetmap at dstoecker.de>:
>> >>
>> >>> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Richard wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Thu, Mar 08, 2018 at 08:36:21AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> You could sit down today and re-implement everything in, say, C++,
>> and
>> >>>>> it would be relatively straightforward, and while the result would
>> not
>> >>>>> share any of JOSM's codebase, it would still encapsulate all the
>> >>>>> experience and brainpower that has flown into JOSM development over
>> the
>> >>>>> years.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> true in principle but you would need a protable GUI that doesn't
>> suck or
>> >>>> you end up programming for at least 3 platforms with 3 sets of bugs,
>> >>>> 3 sets of dependencies etc.
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Reimplementing an existing software like JOSM which has an estimated
>> >>> cost of more than hundred development years (
>> >>> https://www.openhub.net/p/josm) in another language in an non-profit
>> OS
>> >>> application is doomed to fail in my eyes. The motivation for a
>> programmer
>> >>> to take an existing software and reimplement everything again is low.
>> For a
>> >>> very long time you will not have something which is usable and
>> inbetween
>> >>> you have tasks to do, but no positive feedback. That may work when the
>> >>> people are paid for it, but not when programmers need to be
>> motivated. I'd
>> >>> consider people beeing motived by such a task very strange. :-)
>> >>>
>> >>> Rather than that if JOSM really dies some of the better ideas of it
>> will
>> >>> be taken and implemented in existing or new software (which BTW is
>> already
>> >>> happening, e.g. osmosis taking the Validator MapCSS or many other
>> things).
>> >>>
>> >>> If there is a way to automatically convert the code and start with a
>> >>> working base, then the situation is different...
>> >>>
>> >>> But I also don't think this is necessary (ATM).
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Ciao
>> >>> --
>> >>> http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>
>


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