On Saturday, July 14, 2012 12:27:28 AM UTC-7, fabrizio.giudici wrote:
>
>  In a few words, many think that from now on the best way   
> to deploy a desktop application is by embedding a JRE inside. [...] Of 
> course, the thing   
> can be done even with a bundable OpenJRE.


Whoa! I didn't even know you could do such a thing. It does sound like an 
intriguing solution, especially for large applications.

Can I presume that there are utilities to handle this task? 

 

> There are some pitfalls (the   
> primary being that you're growing applications in size)


By how much? Is there a way to only include the parts of the bundled JRE 
that one's application requires?

 

> but also   
> fundamental advantages (embedding a JRE is the only way to distribute Mac 
>   
> OS X apps in the Apple Store).


Don't give a rats about the Apple store. 

 

> Technical problems apart, this approach   
> zeroes legal problems: you don't have to explain to users anything about   
> compatibility, since you're distributing a completely self-contained   
> bundle. 
>

Just because you don't have to explain anything to users does NOT mean you 
now have zero legal problems. In fact, this approach increases legal 
problems because I would then definitely be distributing code written by 
someone else. Would this "bundling" be counted as "linking" under the GPL 
and require all my code to be GPL? Would that depend upon the method used 
for the "bundling"? At the very least, I would then have to provide source 
code (or links to the source code) for the parts that I bundled.


 

> Note that OpenJDK is not a stripped down version of the JDK. 


"Stripped down" - "incomplete"    
You say tomato, I say tomahto.

The end result is the same. There may be parts that don't work or that work 
differently. Possibly in frustratingly subtle ways. Those differences would 
be constantly changing as the OpenJDK code gets updated. So that would be 
one more thing adding to the cognitive overload of my already overloaded 
brain. This is exactly what turned people off about Un*x. There were so 
many [slightly] different versions that one had to be constantly aware of 
the subtle differences. 

 

> For me, I'm   
> only using OpenJDK for the server side since the past summer. For the   
> desktop, there are a few bugs in some areas that should be corrected. But 
>   
> for instance I can run NetBeans 7.1.2 with OpenJDK 7 on Mac OS X with only 
>   
> a few bugs (one is an annoying one, since it's related to copy&paste which 
>   
> you're suppose to use a lot in an IDE, but I mean, it's stuff that will be 
>   
> fixed soon I believe). 
>

Would it be possible to run NetBeans on Oracle's JRE while still writing 
Java code based on the OpenJDK. I remember from school that NetBeans allows 
one to specify which version of the JDK to compile with. Can one simply add 
the OpenJDK to that list and then choose between OpenJDK and Oracle's JDK?

 
Of course none of this addresses the JVM part of this whole issue. I don't 
see any mention of an open JVM on the OpenJDK web site. A little research 
turned up one reference to JRockit eventually being contributed to OpenJDK 
but not yet. Wikipedia has a list of dozens of open source 
JVMs<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines#Free_and_open_source_implementations>.
 
However, how long will it be till Oracle sues them out of existence? Google 
survived, but only because they have as much if not more money than Oracle 
AND they got a judge who actually knows how to program. Besides, using any 
of those would just add to my cognitive overload. An open-source, 
somewhat-complete JDK running on an open-source, somewhat-complete JVM 
written by a different set of people.....

So, in the end, you have convinced me that OpenJDK MAY be moderately 
workable, if I am willing to be patient and work around the inevitable 
bugs. BUT ... you still have not addressed my original questions. 
Enthusiastically explaining to me how it is possible to scale the outside 
of a building and break in through a window, does not answer the question 
of, "Is it OK to walk in the front door?"

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