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Java 8 Delayed To Fix Security
mikejuk writes "Java Development Kit 8, planned for September 2013, is being delayed until next year because of 'a renewed focus on security.' Java has been having security publicity problems recently, but Oracle now seems to be taking them more seriously. Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java platform group, said, 'Maintaining the security of the Java Platform always takes priority over developing new features, and so these efforts have inevitably taken engineers away from working on Java 8.' The major change still to be made to Java 8 is Project Lambda, which Reinhold says is 'the sole driving feature of the release.' He laid out alternatives, such as dropping Lambda from this release, but said Oracle has decided instead to wait until Lambda is ready. The revised schedule for JDK 8 has a developer preview scheduled for September, a release candidate scheduled for January 2014, and general availablity scheduled for March 2014. The delay means that Java SE 9 will probably be released in early 2016, rather than late 2015."
If security was at all a real concern, let alone a priority, java would never install itself as a plugin in every browser it can find, ready to run arbriary code from untrusted sources, by default and with every update. All credability here has been lost ages ago.
I just did the latest update today and instead of the Ask Toolbar is was some McAfee software. Same old shit. You'd think a billion dollar company wouldn't have to resort to cheap tricks like this.
It was forked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenJDK The problem is that the browser plugin and WebStart parts of Java are not included in OpenJDK. But OpenJDK is excellent and widely used.
The Java Dev site has an installer without stupid addon crap.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011