OpenStreetMap Forum

IOOI

Member

Registered: 2010-08-04

Posts: 2

What is the rationale for the Java 1.6 requirement of JOSM since 3378?

2010-07-20 (3378)
JOSM now requires JAVA version 6. Users of JAVA version 5 need to use older JOSM versions.

I don't know what the reason for this is (I hope it's not just the urge to be "modern"), from my understanding the advances of Java 6 over Java 5 are few (and I am a professional Java Programmer, e.g. I earn my money with this). On the other hand this move alienates all the folks who can't upgrade to Java 6, Mac OS X users on PowerPC for instance (Java 6 for Mac OS X is available only for the x86 / Mac OS X > 10.5 versions of Mac OS X). That's a pity since my private main machine is still a PowerBook G4 (for reasons I won't discuss here).

regards,

    Lars

Tordanik

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From: Germany

Registered: 2008-06-17

Posts: 2,840

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Re: What is the rationale for the Java 1.6 requirement of JOSM since 3378?

There were several threads on the josm-dev mailing list discussing the switch since about a year ago, and from what I recall, the reasons were along the lines of

• some problems being more cleanly solveable with 1.6

• 1.5 causing problems with the build server infrastructure

• few users (<4%) still using Java 1.5, with some of them probably able to upgrade to 1.6

• no API update being expected for the near future, which means that old JOSM versions will continue to work

The threads I was able to locate despite the archives' lack of adequate searchability are these: 1 2 3

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OSM in 3D: OSM2World

IOOI

Member

Registered: 2010-08-04

Posts: 2

Re: What is the rationale for the Java 1.6 requirement of JOSM since 3378?

some problems being more cleanly solveable with 1.6

what kind of problems are those? I don't see mentioned anything palpable in the linked discussions

1.5 causing problems with the build server infrastructure

I didn't look into your build infrastructure, but if you'd use Maven you shouldn't have such problems.

few users (<4%) still using Java 1.5, with some of them probably able to upgrade to 1.6

4% is not a minor amount of users. Over years the worldwide market share of Mac OS was quite below that. Now it is at about 5% worldwide. The amount of Linux-Users worldwide is below 1% btw.: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-200908-201008

cartinus

Member

From: Houten

Registered: 2008-01-06

Posts: 502

Re: What is the rationale for the Java 1.6 requirement of JOSM since 3378?

If you want to reach the developers of JOSM with your comments, then you should mail the list you read the discussion on. They are not likely to reply here, because they are probably not even reading this.