enterprise-ubuntu team mailing list archive

[Bolesław Tokarski <boleslaw.tokarski@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Sun/Oracle Java 6 is nearing its end of life in February:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html

How is your experience with Java compatibility? What are your upgrade plans?

Till recently we just stuck to Sun/Oracle Java 6, which was working 
relatively well, I mean compatibility here, and had a number of issues 
with OpenJDK 6.

Now I am thinking if we should upgrade to Oracle Java 7 or to OpenJDK 7. 
I remember reading that OpenJDK is the reference implementation on which 
Oracle's Java is built, so I guess Oracle Java 7 and OpenJDK 7 should be 
more inter-compatible than OpenJDK6 and SunJava6 used to be.

Personally I would prefer to use OpenJDK7 if possible. As Oracle is not 
providing and not allowing to provide .deb packages, we had to build 
them for deployment with each update and this will be the same case for 
Oracle Java 7. Aside, there is a number of critical vulnerabilities in 
all Oracle Java implementations, as per:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/10/new-java-vulnerability-is-being-exploited-in-the-wild-disabling-java-is-currently-your-only-option/

We have a limited number of Java application that we need to run (Oracle 
ERP, jitsi, and Juniper VPN), we'll need to cope with the migration 
sooner than later. I guess it would not be that easy.

Has anyone seen any solutions for selecting the Java version required? I 
know it should be pretty easy with standalone applications, but I mean 
Firefox and plugins. AFAIK there can only be one active Java plugin? I 
was trying to find an extension that I could use to select the Java 
plugin for a particular site, but to no avail. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Ballock