DST Changes .. it didn't have to be this bad
What a mess. The change in Daylight Savings Time highlights a huge problem with how the software industry handles Java installations. It's partly due to the popularity of Java. I suspect it also has a lot to do with the early days when minor updates to Java impacted the functionality of of an application that runs within it.
However it is that we got here, just about every product that uses Java ships a version of Java with it. This has resulted in large corporations having piles of Java installed on their server and desktop computers. Companies trying to deal with the daylight savings time change are finding they had way more Java than they ever imagined, we're talking tens of thousands of Java installations or more for just one company.
With DST, many vendors that ship Java are not really taking responsibility for the Java they shipped. They aren't providing product patches to update Java, they are providing instructions to the end users on how they can fix the Java provided to them. This results in the end user having to manage Java as a separate product even when it wasn't a separate product in the first place.
It doesn't have to be this way, but it's going to take a change of perspective in the software industry.
Step 1: We need to break the perception that Java patch levels are critical to application functionality. We still have vendors who ship products with Java and claim that it is only certified or supported on a specific version of Java. Instead, vendors need to always specify the minimum version. For example, BEA WebLogic 8.1sp6 is supported on JDK 1.4.2_11 and all later releases of JDK 1.4.2.
Step 2: Product vendors need to stop bundling Java with the products that use Java.
Step 3: Java should be installed system-wide so it can be shared by products requiring it. It would just need to be at the minimum patch level required by all products on the system.
DST patching could have been done in 3 simple steps:
Update /usr/java13 to be 1.3.1_18
Update /usr/java14 to be 1.4.2_11
Update /usr/java15 to be 1.5.0_06
Posted by: BrianHayward 22 Feb 2007 07:36:07