RFC: Backport PR542 to icedtea6 1.9 and 1.8

[Dr Andrew John Hughes]

On 09:42 Fri 25 Mar     , Omair Majid wrote:
> On 03/24/2011 06:15 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes wrote:
> >
> > I'm fine with the patch.  I'm just confused by the motive.
> >
> 
> It's a rather simple backport for a bug that some users are hitting. It 
> seemed simple enough to fix, so I just backported the fix. The main 
> motive, (as stated in my first email) is 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=684974.
> 
> > Why suddenly patch this?  There's no imminent release of 1.8 or 1.9,
> > and I thought it had been agreed that the plugin + NetX implementation
> > in these versions would be disabled by default for the next release,
> > in favour of IcedTea-Web?
> 
> I guess I missed that discussion. 

So far, it's just an idea proposed by myself and agreed by Deepak to start
to push people off the unmaintained plugin and to IcedTea-Web.  The patch
isn't out there yet.

> If there wont be a 1.8 or a 1.9 
> release soon and we are disabling netx/plugin in those releases, then I 
> might as well save myself the hassle of backporting.
> 

I wasn't planning one before the security update by Oracle in June, unless
something (like a IcedTea-Web security issue) comes up.

It is up to you if you want to backport it.  It seems both Deepak and I
have already approved the patches so you may as well push them now.
It just seemed to come a bit out of the blue, that's all.

> Still, disabled by default means people may actually attempt to build 
> and use icedtea6 1.8/1.9 with netx/plugin.
> 

Indeed.  There aren't any plans to rip it out, just gently push people to
IcedTea-Web.  Of course, 1.8 and 1.9 will die altogether eventually.

> Cheers,
> Omair

-- 
Andrew :)

Free Java Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)

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