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Canonical To Remove Sun Java From Repositories, Users' Machines

New submitter an_orphan writes "Apparently, Oracle's 'Operating System Distributor License for Java' is expired, causing Ubuntu to not only remove sun-java from the partner repository, but from user's machines."

82 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. An the point is? by tibit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To shoot oneself in the foot?! I just don't get it. Wouldn't Oracle want to have their platform deployed as widely as possible? Someone's asleep at the helm. Just like at the media companies. Seems some big corporations these days are like chicken running around headless...

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    1. Re:An the point is? by cpghost · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's oh so typical of Oracle, even before they swallowed up SUN. They don't want the unwashed masses to touch their products (Database, Solaris, SPARC, now Java?, ...). This elitist mentality was part of their DNA makeup from the very beginning.

      --
      cpghost at Cordula's Web.
    2. Re:An the point is? by Trepidity · · Score: 2

      I think they've more or less given up on Java as a desktop platform, and are focusing on a mixture of enterprise (all that J2EE and Java Beans stuff) and mobile (hence the Google lawsuit).

    3. Re:An the point is? by GPLHost-Thomas · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wouldn't Oracle want to have their platform deployed as widely as possible?

      What Oracle wants is money, they don't care anything else. The new license forced Debian to stop distributing Oracle Java from the non-free repositories, I'm not surprised this happens to Canonical.

    4. Re:An the point is? by David+Gerard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have ten years' Solaris experience. Oracle buying Sun was when I took my boss and my boss's boss aside and strongly put the case that we needed to get the hell off Solaris immediately and go to Linux. (That I was advocating against my own CV was persuasive in itself.)

      We commissioned a new box (12-core x86) to run a proprietary Java app; Linux versus Solaris would have made no difference; but Oracle charged another £300 for one year's Solaris licensing when CentOS was free. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL THEY THINK THEY'RE DOING.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    5. Re:An the point is? by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's being replace by OpenJDK. It was planned to happen like this for years. This was planned obsolescence with a gradual move to OpenJDK. Their is no surprise here except for those who didn't know it was coming. The summary is inflammatory but if you read the article you see that this is nothing really.

    6. Re:An the point is? by xelah · · Score: 2

      Except, of course, a lot of the enterprise business depends on Java clients on desktops to talk to all those J2EE servers. Hence, say, JavaFX.

    7. Re:An the point is? by ae1294 · · Score: 2

      It's being replace by OpenJDK. It was planned to happen like this for years. This was planned obsolescence with a gradual move to OpenJDK. Their is no surprise here except for those who didn't know it was coming. The summary is inflammatory but if you read the article you see that this is nothing really.

      Well the last time I tried OpenJDK with freenet it didn't work right. That was about a year ago. I wonder if that has been fixed. I guess I will find out.

    8. Re:An the point is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't worry dude, I know of a highly secretive website where you can get the java warez. Are your ready for it?

      OK, here it is: java.com

      Ta-dah! We'll show Oracle that they can't take their java away from us!

    9. Re:An the point is? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not just Java. You can get Oracle's flagship database products like that. You've always been able to. They've been pretty permissive like that for pretty much forever.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  2. Re:"from user's machines" by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Informative

    The difference is that automatic updates are optional for Ubuntu, so if you've turned them on you have already opted in to Canonical managing your system. This is especially true because in this case there are security reasons to remove the packages.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  3. Bad summary! by xavdeman · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article: "Oracle, in retiring the ‘Operating System Distributor License for Java’, means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package." So it's not that Oracle has lost their right to distribute Java (JDK) or something, but they are retiring the license Canonical is using that granted them the right to distribute it with Ubuntu. The summary also states (correctly) that Ubuntu will remove the sun-java package from the repository and user's machines, but does not state why: “Due to the severity of the security risk, Canonical is immediately releasing a security update for the Sun JDK browser plugin which will disable the plugin on all machines.” Ubuntu’s Marc Deslauriers wrote in a mail to the Ubuntu Security Mailing list. “This will mitigate users’ risk from malicious websites exploiting the vulnerable version of the Sun JDK.” Summarizing: there are two things going on here, one is that Oracle has revoked the license Canonical is using to distribute Java (JDK) freely so it will not come with Ubuntu anymore. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. Second: The java jdk package will be removed from user's computers because of severe security holes. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. So, two things, one article and one terrible summary.

    1. Re:Bad summary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      OpenJDK is still the default, and still distributed. And like TFA pointed out, the Sun/Oracle version is old and has security issues anyway.

    2. Re:Bad summary! by Nerdfest · · Score: 2

      The unfortunate part is that there seem to be some applications that only seem to like "Sun Java v6" that comes from the repositories. I've tried the manual install of Java 7 from oracle, and Open JDK and neither work for them. I may have to leave the exploitable version installed just to use this software (and only this software, hopefully).

    3. Re:Bad summary! by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

      I use Java as little as possible, and still run into these kinds of problems. I run Arch Linux, which right now has an openjdk6 and a jdk7-openjdk package. There was a a package based on Sun's Java, but it seems to be gone. Really annoying to have to switch between packages to get various Java apps to run, or to find that none of them work.

      This sort of thing is one reason I've stayed away from Java. It's general distrust of anything that could be proprietary, no matter how open it seems. It's not even whether Sun or Oracle ever intended evil. Looks to me that it's more of a problem that the owning organization isn't capable of maintaining the product, and not because they aren't big enough-- I would guess Python, PHP, and Perl all have smaller teams-- but perhaps because they've been too controlling, or because the corporate environment has a negative impact on the competence and commitment of whomever they get to work on it. Bureaucracy. When something is broken, nobody is responsible. All languages have some backward compatibility issues, but Java is a league of its own.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  4. OpenJDK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sensationalist headline is sensationalist.

    Ubuntu will still have the OpenJDK, which is maintained in part by Oracle. "Sun Java" refers to a specific JVM installation.

    1. Re:OpenJDK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You meant
      "Ubuntu will still have the OpenJDK, which is not actually working for most stuff"
      And alternatively users can download the JRE 7 from Oracle, which also does not work for a lot of stuff.
      Great help that.
      Java: Fails everywhere.

    2. Re:OpenJDK by Svartalf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not about them no longer supplying it, but actually ripping it out of your box. They've already distributed it, and under an appropriate license- it wasn't leased out and the license doesn't require removal once the license is retired.

      It does not make any sense to do what Canonical's doing here. Not happy about that thinking.

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    3. Re:OpenJDK by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      Why is this flamebait? Its utterly accurate. I havent been able to deploy Java7 anywhere, mostly because i havent found more than 1 program (minecraft) which actually works with it.

  5. And OpenJDK still not working by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All the while OpenJDK still doesn't work with half of the stuff out there, for example Juniper's SSL VPN.
    Great! Java: Compile once, works nowhere.

    1. Re:And OpenJDK still not working by jaymz666 · · Score: 3, Informative

      doesn't work with crashplan, either

  6. SUN JAVA is not the only JAVA by xee · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ubuntu uses OpenJDK Java by default. Users have for years had the option to switch out the default OpenJDK Java for an alternative package in the 3rd party repository which is Sun Java. That alternative is being removed. In fact, it has never been available in the latest Oneiric 11.10 release of ubuntu. In the latest release OpenJDK is the default & the only java available from the package repos.

    Most people use OpenJDK on Ubuntu and for them this news means nothing.

    If you're using an older release (11.04 or earlier) and you have sun-java installed, simply remove the package & install default-jdk. problem solved.

    --
    Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
  7. Re:Wow! by kwark · · Score: 2

    The impact will be about zero, replace sun-java with openjdk if you need java.

  8. Writing was on the wall by strredwolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gentoo saw the license expiring, and did a proactive thing: flipped the "fetch restriction" flag back on, forcing users to pull it manually and slap it into the right place to install/upgrade.

    --

    --
    # Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
    1. Re:Writing was on the wall by Rich0 · · Score: 2

      Gentoo is a bit unique in this regard. Gentoo tends to distribute source tarballs unmodified, and does any patching on the user's machine. That allows it to operate under more restrictive licenses. Then, if there is no license at all then we can use mirror or fetch restricting. The former prevents the file from being mirrored so that the user gets it straight from upstream. If upstream puts it behind some kind of click-to-agree page then it uses fetch restricting, which means the user is told where to go and what to download and where to put it. Gentoo still checks the hash to make sure the user gets the right thing.

  9. Re:Is this April first? by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Informative

    On Linux, most java developers consider that OpenJDK is the default implementation and that Sun JDK is more or less discontinued.

    OpenJDK is a GPL release of Sun's code. It is the official Java (SE) implementation :

    http://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/moving_to_openjdk_as_the

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  10. Re:Is this April first? by grumbel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is what you get when you have infrastructure that is build around one centrally maintained dependency tree, you are slave to whatever decisions they make. It's not even a new problem, similar software removals against the users will have happened with Gnome2 vs Gnome3 and even back with Gnome1 vs Gnome2 and counterless times when a working version of Gimp was replaced with a broken one and only fixed month later. This one seems a bit more sinister as from the looks of it it seems they remove it in a regular software update, not a dist-upgrade, but it's essentially the same issue. And to all those "This isn't a problem"-sayers, the existence of complicated time consuming workarounds by manual compilation/installation, thus by-passing the binary package distribution, is part of the problem, not the solution.

    It should really be time for Debian to move to a more flexible, more free form of package distribution that doesn't depend on a single dependency tree and fixed locations in the file system.

  11. Re:"from user's machines" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    What "difference" are you talking about? There are *no* automatic updates on Apple stuff (OSX or iOS) - you have to agree to them each time. Please stop trolling about things you clearly don't know anything about.

  12. Re:Is this April first? by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On Linux, most java developers consider that OpenJDK is the default implementation and that Sun JDK is more or less discontinued.

    And yet, a customer that I used to support has an app that will not run on OpenJDK, only on Sun Java. I do not know if it is sniffing the JVM or if it makes use of an undocumented feature AKA bug but it won't even load with OpenJDK. No, I don't have the source.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  13. Re:Wow! by heson · · Score: 2

    Maybe for you, but the applets I run do require sun/oracle java and fails with the alternatives.

  14. Re:"from user's machines" by grumling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You could argue that by putting in your password when update manager asks for it, you are agreeing to let Canonical update your machine.

    --
    "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
  15. just replace your cars water pump by decora · · Score: 4, Insightful

    with a different water pump. problem solved!!!

    other than your car being out of commission for several days, and untold problems being encountered due to the incompatabilities between the old water pump and the new water pump. but whatever.

    in the fantasy land of free software, you can replace word with openoffice, exchange with ????, and it wont cost anyone anything!

    1. Re:just replace your cars water pump by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Continuing this stupid analogy: Your current water pump has security issues. Thieves can use it to steal your car! It has to be replaced, even if you're so incompetent that it takes you "several days" to get the job done.

      Ubuntu no longer has access to OEM pumps, due to decisions made by the manufacturer. If Ubuntu's 3rd-party pump won't work for you, you can still go directly to the OEM, download the exact replacement pump and install it, for free.

    2. Re:just replace your cars water pump by xee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly! You already replaced your car's stock water pump with some aftermarket thing, now that's not working out so well for you. So do the right thing and replace that aftermarket water pump with an OEM part like the car came with.

      --
      Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
    3. Re:just replace your cars water pump by xee · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're confused. OpenJDK is the OEM pump in Ubuntu. Sun java is the aftermarket optional part which isn't an available option on ubuntu cars anymore. (Though you can still do it yourself.)

      --
      Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
    4. Re:just replace your cars water pump by dotancohen · · Score: 3, Funny

      Exactly! You already replaced your car's stock water pump with some aftermarket thing, now that's not working out so well for you. So do the right thing and replace that aftermarket water pump with an OEM part like the car came with.

      That OEM water pump wouldn't pump the water that I need, that is why I installed the aftermarket pump which happens to support _all_ water. Now, so long as I only use some water that was tested with the OEM pump I'm fine, but if I need water that was only tested on the aftermarket pump (which most water is, because the aftermarket pump works on all cars, not just geeky cars) then now I'm screwed.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    5. Re:just replace your cars water pump by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      Sure, pull it off the shelves, but who gives them the right to come out to my house and pull off my existing water pump, leaving me stranded?

      Don't be obtuse. You are the only one who decides whether automatic updates occur, and/or whether to pin a package to a particular version.

  16. Re:Why do they need a distribution license? by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

    OpenJDK is based on the open-sourced version of Java, and Canonical continues to distribute that (and it's the default on Ubuntu). What's being removed is the official Sun (now Oracle) Java packages. They used to include those as well, because there were some compatibility issues with OpenJDK and some apps (especially commercial apps).

  17. Re:Not for long? by GordonBX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whoah. Tone down on the bitterness man. I wish I had some of your insight into the world - on second thoughts I'm glad I don't.

    They've targeted customers who are either spending somebody else's money (mainly the children of the wealthy living off of "daddy's money" or trust funds), those who are financially foolish (people who buy useless gadgets on credit), and those seeking a modern religion (the so-called Apple fanatics)

    Yeah - those are the *only* people who buy Apple gadgets. Those millions and millions of foolish people living off daddy's money. Damn them! Damn them to Hell!

    This has let them put out sub-par products with pretty horrible limitations,

    Yeah, those MacBook Airs are just *rubbish* man. I *totally* can't see why Intel is giving other notebook vendors $100m just to try and come up with a reasonable competitor

    but they can still sell them outrageous prices, and coupled with third-world manufacturing it allows them to make a very sizable profit.

    obviously Samsung (and by extension Google), Amazon, Motorola, HTC and the rest are *good* companies because the fact that they have to sell their stuff at half the price just to try and get people to buy one and therefore don't make a profit at all means that *their* exploration of third world labour is somehow alright?

    TL;DR version: OMFG get off your high horse mr AC anti-apple troll.

  18. Re:"from user's machines" by tixxit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will it be removed from the user's machine, or just (I'm going to guess not-so-sliently) "upgraded" to OpenJDK? I'm suspecting the latter. I'll bet there is a big box that comes up, warns the user Oracle's Java is being replaced, and that if they choose not to upgrade, that no new security updates will be forthcoming. Frankly, the bad press from replacing Java is probably better than the bad press that would've come had they left an insecure, non-updateable version of the JVM on all their releases.

  19. Not a fan of IcedTea by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have encountered numerous problems in recent years with Java code that simply doesn't work on IcedTea. It's not doing anything clever or undocumented. It runs fine on Windows, on MacOS, and on the same Linux boxes but with a different Java run-time. On some of these projects, we had so many problems that we explicitly no longer support IcedTea and won't even consider support requests from customers who insist on using it.

    I don't know about any other JREs based on OpenJDK, but IcedTea is so bug-ridden as to be unusable, and has been for a long time.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  20. Re:"from user's machines" by rtfa-troll · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What "difference" are you talking about? There are *no* automatic updates on Apple stuff (OSX or iOS) - you have to agree to them each time. Please stop trolling about things you clearly don't know anything about.

    The OP is talking about Apple's ability to remote kill applications for security reasons (already demonstrated on iOS, presumably coming soon on OS/X). This comes from itunes, bypasses all need for acknowlegements and has nothing to do with software updates. I will leave you to stew in the irony of your last sentence.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  21. Re:"from user's machines" by Targen · · Score: 5, Informative

    While I love to bash on Ubuntu on every (reasonable and merited) opportunity available, and they certainly aren't scarce, this isn't one of them. As others have already pointed out, the packages were removed because Oracle will not license updates, and the latest distributable version has important security vulnerabilities. It would be irresponsible to keep the current packages in the distribution and illegal to update them.

    More importantly, this move is exactly what Oracle wants done, and no, it's not any sort of evil move. Dalibor Topic explains in his blog the reasons behind this change in licensing: OpenJDK is (the basis of) the reference implementation for Java 7, and the Sun (now Oracle) JDK implementation is now (going to be) based on OpenJDK; the gratis, non-free licensing for the Sun (now Oracle) JDK was a temporary solution that's reached the end of its applicability:

    That non-open-source license was introduced by Sun Microsystems back in 2006, when the open-sourcing of Sun's Java SE implementation was announced at JavaOne, as a stop-gap measure until OpenJDK matured. It was a way to enable Linux distributions to take Sun's JDK 5.0 and provide their own 'native packages' based on Sun's non-open-source bits.

    It was always intended to be a temporary solution, and the final solution has always been migrating to OpenJDK. Yeah, it sucks, compatibility is far from complete, and things will break as a result of this move, but it's always been the plan, and it's not Canonical fucking it up this time. For reference, as one of the comments in TFA points out, Debian did it too.

    In short: nothing to see here; move along. If this makes you lose sleep, maybe you shouldn't have used Java, and maybe you should migrate to something better.

  22. If only Java were always Java by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work in a Java shop. We run Sun Java 6 on a mix of Solaris and Ubuntu. I'll be handrolling a deb from the Sun Java tarball precisely because not everything can be trusted to work identically between Sun Java 6 and OpenJDK 6.

    We just recently hit a weird bug which turned out to be a "how did that ever work?" moment - revolving around different implementation-specific behaviours in Sun Java 6u24 for Solaris SPARC and Sun Java 6u26 for Linux.

    We'll be moving to OpenJDK, but only after thorough testing. OpenJDK 6 is a proper Java, but we've discovered the hard way not to make any such move without thorough testing. Because programmers are human and bugs happen. Never trust, always verify.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  23. Re:"from user's machines" by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, they're just going to remove it. If you want OpenJDK, you have to install that by hand.

    For almost all users, OpenJDK is just fine and is the one to use. (e.g. any Java plugins in the browser, almost any Java app). Anyone who is affected by this went to some effort to install Sun Java by hand specifically.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  24. Re:Absolutely incorrect by makomk · · Score: 2

    Not quite. The browser plugin is being disabled immediately and at some point in the future they'll also be pushing out dummy packages to remove the Sun JDK from user's machines altogether. See the mailing list post.

  25. Re:"from user's machines" by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    And you'd be correct because that's exactly what you are doing. If you want control of the updates use synaptic and you can pick and choose which updates to install. Now that I think about it you may well be able to refuse individual actions with update manager as well. Generally I just look it over and see if anything is objectionable but have never actually denied any action before.

  26. Re:"from user's machines" by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Software which someones tested and released under a given JDK was generally using it for a reason. I can, for one, specifically say that a project I'm working on will specifically *not* run under the OpenJDK.

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  27. Re:This won't work by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't - bad summary conflates "no license to distribute" with "security hole" - the security hole is why Ubuntu needs to fix this, but the only fix they can apply is to remove the package since they can't distribute the fixed version any more.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  28. Re:Not for long? by Gonoff · · Score: 2

    He was talking about Ubuntu - the main offering. As a smart operation, of course Canonical has alternative offerings. Their main distro came with Gnome,

    Whether that was good or bad, is a matter of opinion. Personally, I preferred KDE but chopped and changed between the two.

    --
    I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
  29. Re:Is this April first? by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    Well there is always Linux from Scratch.

    http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

    Have fun!

  30. Re:Wow! by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

    Yuh. The problem is existing code by mediocre programmers.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  31. Re:"from user's machines" by toriver · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Already demonstrated" how? To my knowledge, NO app has ever been remotely killed on iOS, though they have said they have the ability to do so. However, both Amazon Kindle (with the unlicensed "1984" edition) and Google (repeatedly to nuke apps that turned out to be trojans) have done so.

  32. Re:Minecraft needs Sun JVM by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

    Really? I've had no trouble running it on OpenJDK, despite what the download pages claim.

  33. Re:Is this April first? by ElmoGonzo · · Score: 2

    Java did run kinda slow on my old Win95 box but my current Unix and Win7 systems don't display this behavior. Sounds to me like you're living in the past or need a hardware upgrade.

  34. Re:Not for long? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just like unpopular products are good? The Air is an excellent machine with no comparable competitor.

  35. Re:Is this April first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It should really be time for Debian to move to a more flexible, more free form of package distribution that doesn't depend on a single dependency tree and fixed locations in the file system.

    You're absolutely right! We should have packages which install their libraries wherever they feel like, leading to 20 different versions of the same library on the computer in different places, with no clear way of knowing which one is going to get loaded when you run your program.

    We could call it

    DLL HELL

  36. Re:Not for long? by Nemyst · · Score: 2, Informative

    Samsung Series 9. Asus Zenbook. If you want to get extreme, Sony VAIO Z.

    Unless obviously you meant it in the way that it runs OSX, in which case I'll just shrug.

  37. Re:"from user's machines" by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, you're going to have a problem in the future, because Oracle is replacing Sun's Java with OpenJDK. It's going to be the "real" java from now on. The summary, like usual, left this important fact out.

  38. Uncool by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can understand pulling it from the repositories for future installs, but from a user that installed it while the license was still in effect? Really uncool.

    Aside from pissing people off in general, just think of all the production servers they may kill by doing this. And the lost customers, time, money..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  39. openjdk has issues though by MoFoQ · · Score: 2

    dunno about this.
    I ran into an issue lately that only happens with OpenJDK (specifically OpenJDK's implementation of Java Webstart) which was only remedied by installing .....gawd...loathe to say it..."Oracle" Java and by removing OpenJDK.

  40. Re:"from user's machines" by infinitelink · · Score: 2

    One can refuse specific updates from the update manager. I scroll through the list and choose which updates I do and do not want based on information published as to stability and functionality. If some problem has been discovered, I wait a while until a fix is released. This means of course being slightly behind in regard to updates, but generally speaking I do not install things like Java in a browser, I disable scripts, block fetches from other domains, and avoid risky websites (or lock everything down first), thus don't have too many issues. Of course I am not important, and nobody forces me to use some site or service in pursuit of business as many encounter, but the same goes for a lot of the ordinary users of distros like Ubuntu, who use it because it works well enough they do not have to fiddle with it.

    I would be surprised if many of them ever updated their systems since, after all, "it works" (if installed correctly): I installed for my father when he made the mistake of getting a Vista machine when that OS was first released, and when the computer died returned him to Windows due to requirements of business software he is familiar with, and he hates it now ("everything is slow"). The entire time he was on Linux he did not update because things "just worked", so adding No Script and configuring it to the sites he uses regularly was very important, and hitting the system whenever I visited was also. As far ordinary users go, perhaps it would be advisable for the nerdier folk to set up SSH or VLC on family members' systems, lock things down, and tunnel-in whenever they screw things up? Making them dependent not on commercial vendors, but family, and teaching and quizing them constantly might raise the general competence with these machines a little, if done tactfully: "it says I have an update, but I don't know the password", "I'll log-in now and help"; it also might lead to more of us ("the family computer go-to guy's") blowing our brains out though...

    --
    Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
  41. Re:"from user's machines" by jimicus · · Score: 2

    I just checked the 10.7 laptop I'm typing on. Checking for and downloading the updates is automatic, actually installing them is something you get prompted to do and there is no tick box to say "Don't bother me, just do it".

  42. Re:"from user's machines" by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm curious. What specifically is lacking in OpenJDK that causes your project to be incompatible? Finding out from someone who's been-there-done-that is much preferable to hitting that specific brick wall yourself.

    I had thought it was only a few things that were different - sound (fixed), serial IO (fixed... I thought) for example.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  43. Re:"from user's machines" by rtfa-troll · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nor has any app ever been remotely killed on Ubuntu. FUD much?

    Not just that no app has been killed by Ubuntu, but if you switch don't opt in to automatic updates then Ubuntu doesn't even have the ability to do remote kills without your agreement, which, despite the fanbois moderation of my above post, has been confirmed to exist by Steve Jobs himself.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  44. Re:"from user's machines" by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's not true. I have a Lion system right here and it's not an option.

    You can have Software Update fetch updates in the background automatically and let you know when they are downloaded, but it *absolutely does not* install them automatically. You *must* authenticate with an admin account first.

    You can turn off background downloading too, it's merely a convenience factor.

  45. Re:Not for long? by jo_ham · · Score: 2

    No, not all popular products are good, but it's pretty easy to determine the relative quality of a MacBook Air - it's a physical product that many, many people have reviewed and used across the whole gamut of computer users and it gets consistently high marks.

    You can try and handwave away that positive experience of many, many people by claiming it's all down to popularity, but it's somewhat wide of the mark.

    Personally, I do not care for them, but I can appreciate that it is a very good compact laptop/subnotebook.

  46. Re:Great one more package I need to manage by hand by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

    What I don't understand is why Canonical doesn't do for Java what SuSE did for the NVidia drivers (I don't know if Ubuntu does or did the same; I've never used Ubuntu on an NVidia system): Make a package which does not contain the actual code, but an installer which downloads it from the official web site and installs it. That way you both obey the license (download to install only from original source web page) and give the benefits of package management.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  47. Re:"from user's machines" by Xtifr · · Score: 2

    Then you can install Oracle's Java (there is no "Sun Java" any more) yourself. Oracle no longer allows Canonical to distribute updates, and the last version that Canonical was allowed to distribute has security bugs. Canonical won't prevent you from installing any flavor of Java (or any other piece of software) by yourself, but they're not going to stick you with an insecure, buggy package that has no upgrade path, and they're out of other options. If you want to bitch, bitch at Oracle for their boneheaded move.

    BTW, OpenJDK has been improving by leaps and bounds. Unless you tried your project w/in the last few months, you might be surprised. For that matter, this move by Oracle is going to affect more companies than Canonical. (Singling out Canonical for the slashdot article's focus was pretty silly). RH, SUSE and Debian are either dropping or have already dropped Oracle Java as well. They have to--the license requires it. Thus, OpenJDK is going to be getting a lot more attention from those companies/organizations and from Enterprise users who depend on those companies' products. If it doesn't support your product now, it may well within a surprisingly short amount of time.

  48. Re:Not for long? by 517714 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Zenbook, yes - on specs and price. Series 9 not even close, even though it lists for more. The Sony is a good match performance-wise that would have been great with the addition of a decent graphics processor, which it should have included given its premium price - it isn't that extreme except in price. Apple has a distinct edge because it is setting the price points and the competition is in the unenviable position of matching specs or bettering them - at this point only one competitor is seriously challenging Apple.

    --
    The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
  49. Re:"from user's machines" by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

    If you have Sun Java, rather than OpenJDK, it's because you put it there.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  50. Re:Not for long? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll get hate for wading in with such obvious fanbois but WTF, truth is truth> You wanna know why Linux is dead last and going exactly nowhere? Its because you people really really REALLY suck at GUIs, you really do. While you may think some damned 70s terminal is the essence of nirvana the rest of the world has moved on dude, and nobody wants to play with your damned blinking cursor crap.

    I mean holy fuck you are missing features that Windows had a fricking decade ago and while I don't have an OSX machine to confirm I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had them even longer. Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button? How about the find drivers button? You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware and go do the "find a fix" forum dance which ALWAYS ends with "open up bash and type" aka "We suck balls at GUIs so please take our shitty terminal again" with NO thought of ease of use or intuitiveness.

    So you can make your little comments about how Windows and OSX is for "noobs" or how they "suck" but you know what? Apple and MSFT could raise their prices 300% and YOU WOULD NOT GAIN A SINGLE POINT because your designs are backwards, they are NOT intuitive, they are as unfriendly as can possibly be, and the GUIs frankly are extremely basic and often barely functional as I found out when network manager wouldn't take changes in the GUI, tossing them on each reboot. Guess what the solution was? We suck balls at GUIs so please take our terminal. Every. single. time you see "Open up bash and type" you have just written "We suck and are full of fail" because nobody else wants that lame shit but you.

    The sad part is you have most of the pieces, a kernel that does everything a modern kernel should, several (partially) functional DEs that with some polish could be damned nice, and drivers for most hardware, but frankly you couldn't put all these pieces together into a solid intuitive OS if someone put a gun to the head of RMS and told you "do it or the hippie gets it". You know what Linux at this stage reminds me of? Windows 98. What was Win98? It was a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top that kinda sorta worked but for anything more than basic tasks failed, was buggy as fuck, and to get anything complicated done you had to go CLI which you could even bypass the GUI shell completely and just go CLI. What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top that kinda sorta works but for anything more than basic tasks fails, is buggy as fuck, and to get anything complicated done you need to go CLI which you can even bypass the GUI shell completely and just go CLI.

    Apple and MSFT are bringing their A games, which is why MSFT had one of its biggest quarters EVAR just recently and Apple is now one of the biggest corps ON THE PLANET and what do you bring? DE wars and CLI and Mickey Mouse amateur hour bugs. Sorry but there is a reason why you can't give your OS away, and it ain't no conspiracy, its the same reason every OEM from Asus who started Linux on netbooks to retailers like Walmart run away from your OS. Its not stable, its buggy, its too damned fiddly, it lacks polish, its too dependent on 70s terminals. In other words you are bringing your D game and everyone knows it. Now stick THAT in your terminal and compile it!

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  51. Re:Not for long? by gstrickler · · Score: 2

    No one sold a comparable machine 10 years ago, not at any price. It wasn't possible to make a comparable machine 10 years ago.

    --
    make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
  52. Re:"from user's machines" by togofspookware · · Score: 2

    I suspect that comment was directed at developers, not users. I've often wondered how java got such traction among devs. I don't know any who actually enjoy using it. Their stories sound a lot like those told by Cobol programmers ("Things to do today: write code, write code, write code, ...").

    * Build a JAR file
    * Anyone with Java installed can run it

    Is why. And the JVM is a pretty solid platform. I'm not a huge fan of the language itself, but no other platform comes close in terms of simplicity of development and deployment.

    --
    Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
  53. Re:Not for long? by s4m7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Before I start, let me clarify that I am not a *fanboi* but the primary maintainer of a least a dozen production machines each of Windows 7, OS X, and Ubuntu linux. Therefore I feel I'm qualified to shed some light on your misconceptions. Take this response not as *hate* but as an assumption that you are not willfully ignorant about what you're talking about, and you just need someone knowledgeable to clear up your obvious confusion. That said...

    truth is truth

    conceded

    You wanna know why Linux is dead last and going exactly nowhere?

    Dead last on desktops. Number one in the server space. Number one in handhelds. PC ownership has stagnated. The mobile space is where all the growth is happening, and linux-based OS's are eating everyone but Apple's lunch in this field. Even Apple is still relegated to playing a strong second fiddle.

    There are no anti-competitve bundling deals with PC distributors in the linux world. There's also little in the way of manufacturer and application support. Those are the real reasons. Less technical and more political than you seem to think.

    you people really really REALLY suck at GUIs

    This is a gross generalization. Gnome is really no more or less user friendly than any of the commercial alternatives. All of the several different viable options for linux destkop environments have their strengths and faults. It's not any different for Windows or OS X.

    While you may think some damned 70s terminal is the essence of nirvana

    For at least the last 5 years, use of the terminal on an Ubuntu desktop system is about as central as it is on Windows or OS X. Pros do it for convenience, but it isn't necessary unless you're trying to do something unorthodox. This is an old, dead, troll of an argument against Linux. Try a modern Linux desktop, it's really not as bad as you seem to think it is.

    you are missing features that Windows had a fricking decade ago

    By the same token, windows is still missing many features Linux had 20 years ago.

    Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button? How about the find drivers button? You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware

    Driver management in Linux is handled through the package manager, because drivers are software. I haven't needed to roll back a driver, ever. I did so exactly once to enable visual effects and it was complete cake. No CLIs were employed. The last time I needed to use lspci to determine the model of a piece of hardware because it wasn't autodetected was 2006. The last few releases of Ubuntu even notify me when there's a better proprietary (manufacturer) driver than the bundled open one, and automatically install THAT.

    you couldn't put all these pieces together into a solid intuitive OS if someone put a gun to the head of RMS

    so wait, *you're* the one worried about getting "hate" from "fanbois"? Ummm...

    What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top

    An OS is not "CLI or GUI". OS's work to abstract hardware from software. That is their purpose. OSX is a mach microkernel OS with a GUI on top. Windows 7 is a NT-family kernel with a GUI on top.

    You're obviously really upset about linux. I don't really understand why, it sounds like you're really happy with Win7 and that's fine. You can rage about terminals and drivers, and it's not going to change any Linux users' minds about their choice in OS. And since win7 can't run ZFS and won't take the GUI code out of protected kernel space, your angry rant isn't going to change my mind either.

    Point being that choice is good, each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. I salute your right to choose and even though windows is far and away the hardest of the three to administer, and you clearly have no need of the superior features Linux does offer, I'm glad you're happy with it.

    --
    This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
  54. Re:"from user's machines" by LizardKing · · Score: 4, Informative

    As someone who has to support Java applications (with Swing based front ends) on Windows, Mac OS X, and various Unix flavours I can say with some confidence that OpenJDK is as good as an Oracle branded Java runtime, and better than an IBM branded one. We (meaning my employer) support our apps on IBM's Java runtime when OpenJSDK isn't an option, but our preference is now Oracle's releases or OpenJDK with no real preference for either. The significant thing is that only a year ago this wasn't the case - we considered Oracle's releases to be the preferred platform over OpenJDK. Since then, we have seen no bug reports that have turned out to be down to bugs in OpenJDK that didn't exist in Oracle's releases. Of course if you're fucking about and using unpublished API's from the com.sun packages, then that would explain your claim to not support OpenJDK, but then by definition of what is a "certified Java application", if you are using such API's then you have no reason to complain that your apps don't work as expected under OpenJDK.

  55. Re:"from user's machines" by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

    We've spent too much money verifying the software which was NOT testing under OpenJDK.

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  56. Re:"from user's machines" by KagakuNinja · · Score: 2

    What I remember from accidentally using OpenJDK a few years ago... Apache Tomcat, one of the most popular servlet containers, did not work with OpenJDK. The first thing I do with any Linux server is remove OpenJDK and install the latest Sun (now Oracle) version of Java.

    I don't know what the incompatibility was, and maybe they have fixed it by now. But I don't care enough about "freedom" to bother with OpenJDK.

  57. Re:"from user's machines" by mysidia · · Score: 2

    Who told you this? Last time there were updates for my Lion machine it informed me that updates were available and offered me the choice of whether or not to install them.

    It's details of MacOS Lion

    that have been well published that MacOS Lion has automated security updates. Some updates require approval.

    This doesn't preclude the possibility of Apple installing other security updates to installed apps without approval in the future, or of removing 'banned' apps entirely (supposing Apple deemed the app to be bad, or in violation of Apple's policies for the Mac app store).

    Do you think they are reserving rights to do so in the EULA, for no reason?

  58. Re:"from user's machines" by Rary · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, you're going to have a problem in the future, because Oracle is replacing Sun's Java with OpenJDK. It's going to be the "real" java from now on. The summary, like usual, left this important fact out.

    Almost right, but not quite. As I understand it, Sun's (now Oracle's) JDK will still exist, but it will no longer be the Reference Implementation. OpenJDK will become the Reference Implementation.

    This does, of course, mean that OpenJDK will be the "real" Java, and that there should (in theory) be no differences between Oracle JDK and OpenJDK— and if there are differences, then it's Oracle JDK that's wrong. But Oracle's JDK will still exist.

    --

    "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

  59. Re:Is this April first? by ADRA · · Score: 2

    You are crazy. I'm a Java developer, who uses Linux, and I'd neer consider OpenJDK as any sort of alternative to SunJDK. Its pretty much the first thing I install on my Linux boxes. The Oracle/Sun supplied JRE is a lot more stable, and I'd assume is better performant as well.

    --
    Bye!
  60. Re:Not for long? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    Thank you, but I'm just a humble retailer that got tired of being lied to. I mean if their OS was actually good then why has ASUS has given up on Linux? If it is so stable then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? If it is so secure then

    how, do you explain these?

    So you see somewhere on the way to be a good OS Linux quit being an OS and became a religion. Admittance of the myriad of problems is NOT allowed, anymore that you could question the Koran or Bible in the home of a fundie. Frankly Canonical could change the default picture to Goatse and we'd see apologists come out of the woodwork to explain that is actually a biting social commentary on our times.

    Here are some facts: Fact 1- All the major OEMs frankly ignore Linux not because of some secret M$ Ninja conspiracy, but because its so damned unstable thanks to Torvalds treating the kernel as his own playground. this attitude which is expressed by the man himself right here mean a company either has to do like dell and pay a team to basically run their OWN distro, no small task, or deal with a broken mess when Torvalds goes 'Lol Goatse!" and breaks shit. this is why even Canonical admitted there is a FOUR TIMES higher return rate for Ubuntu netbooks which makes linux a money LOSER for any company foolish enough to try. Walmart, Asus, these companies don't just abandon a product willy nilly you know, they did it because of the reasons i listed.

    The sad part? All the basic parts are there, a modern kernel, DEs that with some serious polish could be great, plenty of drivers, but the zealots and itch scratching devs make sure Linux goes exactly nowhere. the ONLY reason it has gotten anywhere on servers is MSFT's frankly ass raping prices on CALs. If MSFT dropped the price of WinServer to $100 and the price of CALs to a buck a pop Linux would dry up and blow away, anybody that was honest would admit this. As a Linux admin i know put it "if you give a Windows and Linux admin the same job that the Linux guy has done repeatedly then the Linux admin WILL win, but if its a completely new task? the windows admin will be home making a sandwich before the Linux admin is done Googling".

    But instead of admitting that CLIs are for servers and GUIs for desktops you'll get 300 page treaties on how "CLI is leet!" and how much better the world would be if "They would only embrace the POWER of CLI" like its the god damned force. So instead all you get is flag waving and fangirls. notice how many above me rushed to say "And I'm not a fanboi"? Every time you read that the translation should be "I'm such a fangirl I squee like a tweener at a Beiber concert when i see a Bash prompt!"

    Ultimately though their denial can't change reality and the simple fact is their precious awesome OS lower than JavaME , a shitty third rate cellphone OS. Why? If it is sooo good why is it so low? Because it ISN'T good, its a buggy, fiddly, unfriendly, unintuitive, CLI heavy fiddly bitch that is about as far from the level of polish from OSX and Win 7 as it is from here to Europa. If they weren't so busy drooling over bash prompts maybe they'd ask the most important question, which is "What are our competitors doing right that we are doing wrong?' but that would mean admitting 70s terminals are as out as Disco, and they'd rather choke on RMS's sandals that admit that little truth.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.