Build changes for 7176225: Remove JDBC-ODBC Bridge

[Lance Andersen - Oracle]

On Oct 30, 2012, at 7:55 AM, Alan Bateman wrote:

> On 29/10/2012 12:41, John Yeary wrote:
>> Thanks Ulf, that was my exact point Ulf. Although, you were much more
>> eloquent.
>> 
>> One of the most consistent things that Java has done is ensuring backwards
>> compatibility. The removal of something like the JDBC-ODBC bridge will
>> cause issues later. We tell people to upgrade all the time. Security
>> problems arise and we patch them followed by a message to tell folks to
>> upgrade. The consumer JRE even has a reminder application which asks them
>> if they want to upgrade. One click, and their applications stop working.

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge was never included with the JRE, you had to install a JDK which provided it and not all JDKs do. 
>> 
>> Although I don't do anything now with MS Access, I see these nice Swing
>> applications which end up with an Access database. The software that runs a
>> number of Yoga studios has this configuration. It is the small businesses
>> which rely on the cheaper Access based applications which will have
>> problems.
>> 
> The JDBC-ODBC bridge was a useful stop-gap 10+ years ago when there wasn't JDBC drivers available for all databases. It has never supported to my knowledge and the recommendation has always been to use a JDBC driver for the database. For those that are still using it then they have another year to find an alternative. I don't think that is too unreasonable. There will of course be a warning on the download pages that developers will see. For MS Access there are several JDBC drivers available, many of which support JDBC 4.1. There are also other alternatives such as MySQL or Derby available that might be better anyway.
> 
> I think your point about communities or developers that have been using it and aren't reading download pages, release notes or blogs is valid concern. Any help reaching out to those communities would be appreciated.
> 
> As regards releasing the source code then this is easier said than done. The JDBC-ODBC bridge came from a third-party originally. To be honest I don't think it's worth the cost and effort anyway as it's completely obsolete.

There is a pretty big cost to continue to maintain, support, and test the JDBC-ODBC bridge properly given the amount of platforms, ODBC drivers, databases you would have to adequately test to do it properly. 




> If folks really see a need for this then it provides an opportunity to start up a new project to develop a modern JDBC-ODBC bridge.
> 
> -Alan

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