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Oracle Removes Java Signatures, Breaking Webstart
sproketboy writes "It seems Oracle has decided in their infinite wisdom to remove digital signatures from the Java projects that they put into the open source community. Of course this breaks any application out there depending on Java Webstart using these libs. Looks like Java3D and JAI are currently affected — probably other APIs are as well. Oh Oracle! What are we supposed to do with you?"
Oracle only said they'd keep it open source. They never said they'd let you use it.
from FTA:
It's been several years since Oracle (previously Sun) stopped providing support for the open source Java3D projects. It was decided that keeping binaries signed with old Sun signing certificates represented a potential security risk, and because of this, we have removed the old Sun signing certificates for the binaries on download.java.net.
Cause you know...that makes sense.
Oracle is used to dealing with very large corporations. Now that they have their hands on Java, which directly affects many users, web hosts (large and small), etc, etc they just don't know how to handle things. Forcing major changes onto companies that Oracle has by the implementation & licensing balls is one thing, but trying to force major changes onto the real world will only lead to a backlash and the adoption of alternatives to Java.
It will take a little time to untrench Java, but the intertubes won't stand for this type of reckless and disrespectful behavior. A change is a commin'.
Die Java! Die! Go Oracle! Kill this shitastic language! Once it's dead, the horde of Java "programmers" can go back to being fry cooks like they were before Java was created.
fry cook! If only .... I was a C++ programmer
There are plenty of good Java programmers. Yes there are more crap java programmers. But I can't think of any language for which that ISN'T true.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Actually, Oracle might not have bought Sun if they could not sue Android:
" Miguel De Icaza has provided a very interesting insight into the case. His report has been confirmed by James Gosling, known as the father of Java who left Sun right after the merger. Icaza speculates that the potential to monetise on Java by suing Google was pitched by Jonathan Schwartz during Sun's sales talks with Oracle. Oh boy."
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/android-oracle-java-lawsuit/
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Aug-13.html
http://www.osnews.com/story/23684/De_Icaza_Sun_s_Schwartz_Pitched_Google_Lawsuit_to_Oracle
New things are always on the horizon
If you have an HR webstart app that loads libraries from random servers on the internet, you probably deserve what you get...
Serves JavaWebStart coders right for relying on third-party, online systems.
In that vein, one can consider what would happen if Google suddenly stopped hosting JQuery: about half of the javascript-using websites in the world would stop working. :)
I don't like oracle either. But if you are writing a webstartable application, you probably have the infrastructure to sign your own jars. So you could sign the Java3D-jars yourself and distribute them together with your application. Depending on availability of something like http://download.java.net/media/java3d/webstart/release/j3d/1.5.2/windows-i586/j3dcore-d3d_dll.jar - signed or not - isn't really advisable anyway.