[jsword-devel] End-of-Life (was Re: parallel display with WLC)

[DM Smith]

On May 3, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Peter von Kaehne wrote:
>
> I know that you want to provide a good experience at lower Java
> versions, but I think it is worthwhile to be realistic here - if the
> underlying software has a serious flaw people should upgrade to a new
> version. I would have no hestiation to put a sentence to this effect
> onto the website:
>
> "While this software is designed to run successfully on Java version  
> 1.4
> upwards, you will get the full benefit of its RtoL display  
> capabilities
> only once you use Java version 1.6 upwards."

Having it run well under Java 1.4 is not a design goal. Our goal is to  
reasonably support users of BD. Our audience varies. We want to be  
able to support missionaries, pastors and churches with hand-me-down  
hardware. We want to support people with machines that still work well  
and on which BD currently runs well.

I'd like to be able to define this simply as the current and previous  
OS, but it is not quite that simple. I find that Linux users generally  
will upgrade to the latest and greatest fairly quickly. Windows is  
upgraded sporadically along 3 lines, consumer (win98, winme, winxp,  
vista), business (winnt, win2000, win2003) and server (BD might work  
here, but it is not supported). So there may be long intervals between  
releases. Apple releases a new OS frequently.

Regarding the age and capabilities of the hardware, BD will run on as  
little as 32M RAM (maybe less) and takes up very little disk space.

Here is a list of the availability of Java on Mac, Windows and Linux  
(perhaps all Unixes)
Mac OS 8.1 - 9.x has Java that is 1.1.8.
MacOSX 10.1 has Java 1.3 but not Java 1.4.
MacOSX 10.2-10.3.x has Java 1.4, but not Java 5
MacOSX 10.4-10.5.1 has Java 5, but not Java 6
MacOSX 10.5.2, for 64 bit Intel only has Java 6. (i.e. not my 2 year  
old mac mini, which is core duo, 32 bit)
Win95 can only use Java 1.3.1_xx.
On Win98/WinNT, one can run Java 5, but not Java 6
Linux and later versions of Win can run Java 6.

I am running IcedTea on FC8, which is Java 7. This is the first open  
source Java on which BD can run.

Breaking this down by OS:
Unix:
My assumption is that a user can upgrade to a recent version of the  
distribution of their choice. There are just not enough users of early  
versions of Unix for us to bend over backwards.

Windows:
BD works on Win98/WinNT or later and can use Java 5 on those  
platforms. For the most part, Microsoft provides updates for about 10  
years from the date of the last service pack for an OS. This means  
that a user can re-install Windows, if needed, and get the latest  
security changes. IMHO, we should not support versions of MS Windows  
for which one can not get updates after a clean install.

This is outline by Microsoft here:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=windows&Filter=FilterNO
Note the "Extended Support Retired" column.

Of course, if we can't test on the platform, we can't actually support  
it. I don't have access to Vista (I can't afford to replace my windows  
machine which died. Unless MS changed their policy requiring Ultimate,  
I can't afford to get a copy to run in VM.) So I am dependent upon  
others to test it. (Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, ....)

MacOS:
Apple released 10.2 (Jaguar) August 2002, 10.3 (Panther) on October  
2003, 10.4 (Tiger) on April 2005 and 10.5 (Leopard) on Oct 2007. By  
June 2007, Tiger was used by 67% of Mac users. Which means that 23%  
were only have Java 1.4. If it weren't for this, we'd have moved to  
Java 5. In fact we tried but there was too much push back from Panther  
users. So we reverted the code.

J2ME:
This actually is not an OS, but a different version of Java that runs  
on PDA's, phones and other small devices. We have had a desire for  
JSword to work on such a platform. However, to date, this is a dumb- 
down version of Java 1.3. Troy found in doing FlashCards in J2ME that  
it is a lot of work. So while it is a desire, it is not really  
realistic. Perhaps J2ME will someday be less dumb. For this reason, I  
think it is reasonable to not make it any harder.

Farsi:
Peter, based upon your observations that we only need to consider  
WinXP or later, it is reasonable to require Java 5 or later. It just  
doesn't work under Java 1.4. So, with the release, I'll be glad to  
make the announcement. I think that I'll also make a general statement  
that using the most recent version of Java provides the best experience.

After the ELEPHANT release, we will have a reasonably feature complete  
application. At that time, we will start working on 2.0 and with that  
we may say to users that if you want to run on an older OS or older  
hardware or have a smaller download, use the ELEPHANT release.

In His Service,
DM