Switch to Java 7

[Don-vip]

Oracle has released their final public update of Java 6 (​Update 41) and has implemented a ​"6 to 7" auto-update feature that will concern nearly all Windows and Mac users:

when updating from JRE 6, the update mechanism will not only install the latest version of JRE 7 but will also remove the highest version of JRE 6 on the system. This change will happen when the system is updated via the auto-update mechanism or by checking for updates directly from the Java Control Panel.

In the meanwhile, Linux distributions start to ship OpenJDK7 as their default implementation. ​Ubuntu ships Java 7 as default since version 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal).

Therefore, we will have soon a majority of users that will run JOSM with Java 7. Maybe it is already the case ? What are the current usage statistics ?

We have a couple of tickets that could benefit from switching to Java 7. I'm thinking at least to #7406, #7896 and #8098.

Java 7 ships also language improvements and some other features JOSM could use, mainly in parallelism, I/O and rendering:

• ​http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/language/enhancements.html#javase7
• ​http://www.eclipse.org/jdt/ui/r3_8/Java7news/whats-new-java-7.html
• ​http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/java-7-whats-in-it-developers-170636?page=0,1
• ​http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/jdk7-relnotes-418459.html

So, when do you think we could switch ?

[bastiK]

recent stat:

Java Main Version --> 6 (1812, 44.1%) 7 (2294, 55.8%) 8 (4,  0.1%)

Maybe wait for the Win/Mac auto-update to kick in and see what numbers we have then.

[stoecker]

We switched to Java 6 with less than 5% users using Java 5. So it is a long way to go :-)

[Don-vip]

Ok thanks for the numbers:) Is there a way to publish them automatically on the website? By the way it's funny to see 4 people using JOSM with Java 8!

[Don-vip]

Do we have OS marketshare stats among those running Java 6?

[stoecker]

Replying to Don-vip:

Is there a way to publish them automatically on the website?

No. We wont do that.

By the way it's funny to see 4 people using JOSM with Java 8!

One time Russian, one time English, the other one German, probably counted twice.

Do we have OS marketshare stats among those running Java 6?

No. The user agent string does not contain that information.