[OSM-talk] Moving to Java 1.6 not so easy to swallow

[Aun Johnsen]

I am one of those unfortunate Mac users. When I got my Mac (it was a
present, I didn't buy it) Java6 vs Java5 wasn't an issue. Most Java
applets available for me to use at this time was Java5 or even older,
and those few that ran optimally on Java6 was still executable in
Java5. Two years later and the Java applet I use the most suddenly
announces that "within a month we will stop support for Java5". This
is extremely short notice for me. And since I also have been using SVN
version I should be able to compile my own last version. The problem
here is that I am constantly on travel, usually with extremely limited
connections to the internet. For me it would be appreciated that JOSM
was split into another branch, so that we can have JOSM j5 and JOSM j6
side by side. I know that it will be some extra work on the
developers, but that will allow for fairly up to date versions of
both. As with all other software that are branching in this way we
don't expect all versions to be equally updated, but it gives us that
cannot change to the newer branch more time.

The reason Mac doesn't implement Java6 is not the issue here. Maybe
Mac have reasons for not implementing Java6, maybe they know secrets
about the release of a future Java7. None of us are really in a
position to know. Anyway I am not able just upgrade to Java6 at the
moment, and do not know when I will have time to get a working Java6
(Sun Java6 not available, no knowledge about other versions java).

A

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought I'd reply generally to a few replies in this thread.
> Disclaimer: I'm not a JOSM developer, although I have submitted a few
> patches and a lot of bugs.
>
> JOSM like most of the OpenStreetMap toolset is developed by
> well-meaning developers in their free time. The direction the software
> takes is ultimately a function of what the people that submit code
> want to work on.
>
> If you think JOSM should do something that it doesn't do now submit
> patches, or at least submit a bug. There's a mention in the thread
> that JOSM & mkgmap don't run under OpenJDK on NetBSD. Has there been a
> bug filed for this? I couldn't find any. How is anyone supposed to fix
> it if there at least isn't a report for the issue?
>
> To date I've filed around 300 bugs in JOSM's bugtracker, 170 of these
> have been fixed. JOSM's developers do care about issues you encounter,
> but they have to *know about them*.
>
> As for the Java 1.6 issue you can continue to run the last Java 1.5
> release after the JOSM trunk has moved onto Java 1.6. The developers
> are putting effort into making sure that the last 1.5 release is
> stable.
>
> Even if you want to follow trunk you can still do that. Just dual-boot
> Debian[1] or Ubuntu[2] along with OSX and do your JOSM editing there.
> It's trivial to set up a Mac to dual boot (I ran this setup for years
> back when Mac hardware was worth the price for me).
>
> 1. http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/
> 2. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads
>
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