On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Lewis John Mcgibbney wrote:
Do we want to move towards dropping support for Java 1.6? Oracle made an
announcement some time ago so this is not exactly new news
https://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/java_6_eol_h_h
The problem is that Tika has three kinds of users:
* Those using the standalone tools
* Those adding Tika into a smallish app they're developing
* Those using Tika as part of a large system / framework
People in the first two categories can move to a newer JVM fairly easily,
if they aren't already on one. Those in the latter category find it a huge
amount of effort to upgrade their JVM, sometimes almost impossible to do.
If we move to a newer JVM, we'll loose those people
By users on the lists, I'd suspect most are in categories 1 and 2. By
overall users, it's quite possible that category 3 wins, so we do need to
take care of their interests too!
As an example, Alfresco only moved to requiring Java 7 with Alfresco 4.2,
4.1 (still quite widely installed, and very much still supported) has a
minimum of Java 6. If we move to Java 7, that'll mean that if there's an
Alfresco bug traced back to Tika, they'll have to backport it into a
private branch of Tika that's 1.6 compatible. It'll also mean they'll be
less inclined to move to a newer Tika, as it'd mean more support hassle if
some versions of Alfresco are on stock Tika $latest, and others are on a
private older branch. Alfresco are generally quite good as vendors go, so
expect many other large systems bundling Tika to be much much worse...
I'm not saying "don't upgrade", just trying to make sure everyone's aware
of what we loose + what problems we cause for our users, so it can be
correctly weighed up against the benefits!
Oh, and don't forget that Java 6 is still supported for another 23 months,
for those willing to pay (and I believe there are many who do!)
Nick
