'In the wake of its recent sweeping antitrust suit settlement over Java with Sun Microsystems Inc., Microsoft has extended support for the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (MSJVM) by three years.
'Until last week, Microsoft was set to terminate support for MSJVM—as well as a number of key Microsoft products that include the MSJVM code—on Sept. 30...' http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1567445,00.asp ----- Original Message ----- From: Miguel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 5:32 am Subject: Re: [Jmol-users] Jmol v10 java requirements > Phil wrote: > >>Not exactly true... > >> > >>http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5087678.html > >>'MICROSOFT EXTENDS SUPPORT FOR ITS JAVA MACHINE > >> > >>(Last modified: October 7, 2003, 3:50 AM PDT) > >>Microsoft will continue to support its Java virtual machine through > >> September 2004, a nine-month extension that will make it easier for > >> customers to find substitutes for the software...' > > > Here is my understanding of the situation ... > > 'Support' from Microsoft means security bug fixes ... nothing > more. That > is, if you already have the JVM installed then you can get > security fixes. > > However, I don't think that one can use Windows Update to install > the old > JVM on XP systems. This has been the case for some time. > > > Jan wrote: > > I argue against cutting off MSJVM until September 2004, than MS will > > regard the MSJVM as insecure and it will not longer work without > > lowering the IE browsers security policy, so the user has to > take action > > in any case. > > This is an interesting point. And in a business setting I think > that one > could argue (somewhat politically) that 'security risk' was a > valid reason > for not supporting the IE JVM. > > However, I don't think that has any impact on legacy systems for > studentsand universities. > > There is nothing magical about the Sept 2004 date. > > >>And even after that cutoff date, _all_ the installed JVMs are > going to > >> continue to operate, and that's a lot of machines! Now this is > not an > >> issue for the developers and their/our machines...it's an issue > from>> at-home students > > * Actually, those at-home students with dial-up lines will get > some great > benefits from the newer JVM. The Java Plugin has a large separate > cachefor applets. Therefore, they will only have to download the > JmolAppletone time from a given site. As long as the JmolApplet > does not change on > the web site then they won't need to download it again. > > * During the download process they will see a progress bar, > giving them > visual feedback of how long it will take. -- On the MSFT JVM they see > nothing. > > * With the newer JVM I can structure things so that they are in > multiple.jar files. The first .jar file can have a 'directory' > which says which > jar files contain which classes. Therefore, only the jar files > that are > needed will get downloaded. -- On the old JVMs all jar files get > downloaded. > > * The JmolApplet is going to get larger. We are currently at 400K > and I > suspect that we will be at 750K - 1Mb by the time we finish adding > support for file formats and features. > > With the size we have today we are looking at a 1.5 to 2 minute > downloadover a dialup line. That delay is going to grow to 3 or 4. > During this > download they get NO feedback. And next week when they go back to > the same > site, they have to wait again. > > With the Sun JVM they download once, the download what they need, > and they > get visual feedback of how long it is going to take. > > > >> instructions to download other software or to reach into the > bowels of IE > >> preferences and toggle between the Sun and Microsoft Java machines. > > No toggling needs to be done. They install the Sun plugin and it > works. > > >>It may not be 'fair' to other OS and browser choices with VMs, but > >> pragmatically Jmol should not abandon use on Microsoft JVM if > there is > >> not a technical reason to do so. > > I think that there are technical and practical reasons. > > I assure you that we share the same goal ... to reach as many > users as > possible. And 90% are on Win32. I just don't think that they are > going to > wait for 2 to 4 minutes each time they go a site that has the > JmolApplet. > Q: Do you think that there is value in a JmolAppletLite that could > run on > old JVMs and eliminated a lot of functionality? > > Q: If so, what functionality would you be willing to jettison? > > > >>(OTOH, I can see abandoning NS 4.x, etc., because they are dinosaurs > >> _and_ virtually none of the traffic to my site uses them > anyway, even if > >> they are chime-capable--can others who keep website statistics > verify a > >> need to try to keep them?) > > Actually, it turns out that there is very little to be gained by > dropping.The debugging has already been done to support NS4 & > MacOS 9. So if we > maintain support for the MSFT JVM then we may as well leave in the > codefor them too. > > > Let's keep talking. > > > Miguel > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials > Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of > GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system > administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click > _______________________________________________ > Jmol-users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jmol-users > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id70&alloc_id638&op=click _______________________________________________ Jmol-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jmol-users
