Keeping in mind that I am utterly ignorant of a lot of these issues, and am tossing straws in the wind, see comments below...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Peter,
we use Web Start in a customer project. It's a good solution to deploy Java applications as a JAR file, even with native code and such.
Some caveats:
-The security manager can get in your way if you want things like filesystem access. You have to sign your jar and each user has to accept your signature once per application.
If the "once per application" meant once per Fop installation, that would be OK. Can the user allow us file system access once the signature is accepted?
- You cannot catch uncaught exceptions in JNLP applications. This is useful for GUI applications, so you can catch and for example log these exceptions. With JNLP, AWT/Swing creates its own thread group so you're out of luck there. Maybe not an issue for fop.
I'd have to think about the implications of this. Drawing a blank at the moment.
- Only comes with JRE 1.4 by default, and older WebStart version are quite buggy in my experience.
This is a show stopper while we are supporting 1.3.
So far I cannot see how exactly WebStart would be useful for FOP regarding licensing stuff, because your "sources" for parts like hyphenation libs still need to be JNLP jars, so you still need someone to actually provide these jars and thus take responsibility regarding legal issues. As for as I see it, you don't gain anything.
Let's say, for example, that we approach a TeX distribution with a request that we be allowed to download the TeX hyphenation files, as modified for use with Fop. If they are OK with that, we generate a jar file with the hyphenation files, including the original copyright (and possibly notes about the conversion being done under the auspices of Apache) and drop it on the CTAN servers. Alternatively, we simply jar up the original TeX files, and include a conversion process in the installation.
The files are not coming from an Apache server, and they do not carry the Apache license (except for perhaps a "Parts copyright..." notice). It is a convenience to our users that we download such files transparently from another source on installation.
But if you have something more concrete in mind, please feel free ask more concrete WebStart questions.
Thanks Arnd. Peter -- Peter B. West <http://www.powerup.com.au/~pbwest/resume.html>
