Re: Is it time to remove sun-java6?

[Gabor Gombas <gombasg@sztaki.hu>]

Hi,

On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 08:33:48PM +0000, Florian Weimer wrote:

> * Gabor Gombas:
> 
> > - start advertising that openjdk/icedtea is now supposed to be usable,
> 
> Note that the non-applet stuff has been quite usable for a while.
> Even the openjdk-6 in lenny is not too bad (it's certainly possible to
> run various production loads on it).

I don't use Java much, so I have not followed openjdk development.

> I'm surprised by the interest in this type of technology.  For the
> security team, the web plugin will be somewhat nightmarish.  There are
> also software freedom issues surrounding it (due to the University of
> California's recent lawsuits).

I'm not a big fan of Java applets. However sometimes I have to access
web sites using applets to get some work done, and if those applets do
not work with icedtea6-plugin then I have no choice other than to
install sun-java6-plugin instead.

Missing security support is a good argument for removing the sun-java6-*
packages. Claiming that there are no user complaints about
icedtea6-plugin however is not, because the reason why people don't
complain may be that they still use sun-java6-plugin.

Gabor

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     MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute
                Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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