Thilo Goetz wrote:
the issue is not the project itself, e.g., Jackrabbit, but the applications that build on it. There are many products out in commercial land that are still tied to Java 1.4. Once you start prereqing Java 1.5, those products will no longer be able to use your component.
That's true. But Tika is still gestating. We should pick the highest Java version that we think most clients will be moving to over the next few years, as Tika matures and is adopted by projects. So, if we assume that Tika will be mature and ready-to-use in a year, and that it will then be incorporated in development versions of applications, that might themselves not then released for a year, then the question is not whether these applications are using Java 1.5 today, but whether these applications will be using Java 1.5 in two years.
Different applications will incorporate Tika at different times and will upgrade to Java 1.5 at different times. Choosing 1.5 will undoubtedly rule out certain applications (some applications may *never* upgrade to Java 1.5). But I'd argue that the applications that are most likely to be interested in upgrading to the latest-and-greatest Tika-based tools are likely to be those that will also be upgrading to Java 1.5.
Platform availability used to be an issue for Java 1.5. It isn't much any longer. IBM, GCJ and Apache Harmony all support Java 1.5 features.
Doug
