application/x-java-applet;jpi-version=1.6.0_06

[Jiri Vanek]

On 01/11/2014 06:33 PM, Jack Bates wrote:
> On 10/01/14 08:57 AM, Deepak Bhole wrote:
>> * Jiri Vanek <jvanek at redhat.com> [2014-01-02 07:13]:
>>> On 01/01/2014 11:16 PM, Jack Bates wrote:
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>>> Firefox complains "A plugin is needed to display this content." when I try to access Oracle
>>>> Forms. I
>>>> am running a fresh install of Ubuntu 13.10 plus the icedtea-6-plugin package, version 1.4. The
>>>> plugin is detected by Firefox when I visit both about:addons and about:plugins
>>>>
>>>> I reduced the Oracle Forms landing page to this test case:
>>>>
>>>>     http://nottheoilrig.com/java/201306210
>>>
>>> Thank you for reproducer!
>>>
>>>> Firefox complains with the same error when I visit this test case ("A plugin is needed to display
>>>> this content.") but the error goes away if I drop the "jpi-version" from the test case.
>>>> Unfortunately I can't drop the "jpi-version" from the actual Oracle Forms landing page.
>>>
>>> This appeared to be more tricky then I thought at first. The
>>> attached patch is fixing the reproducers behaviour, however there is
>>> issue, that this type of definition requires exact hardccoded "_06"
>>> in mime descripor.
>>
>> I am against doing this. The documentation[1] states:
>>
>> "The recommended usage of the <embed> tag is to not specify any version
>> or jpi-version in the MIME type of the applet. Instead, use the
>> java_version parameter to choose a particular JRE version upon which to
>> run the applet."
>>
>> 1: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/index-141751.html#aJPI_VERSION
>>
>>  From what I can tell, Oracle Forms is essentially hardcoding the
>> required JDK version which is a bad way to do things (especially since
>> 1.6.0_06 was released in April 2008 and is extremely insecure).
>>
>> The proprietary Oracle plug-in only supplies a specific jpi-version that
>> corresponds to the JDK it is shipped with, and not previous ones.
>>
>> The Oracle Forms app needs to be updated. I understand that the user has
>> little say in this sometimes but I would really like to avoid changing
>> ITW to accommodate badly written apps.
>
> I understand not wanting to add support for a deprecated MIME type parameter to ITW, and wanting
> Oracle Forms to get current.
>
> In general, from a user's perspective, even if an in-the-wild webapp used
> "application/x-java-applet;foo=bar" I would rather handle it with ITW than watch Firefox complain "A
> plugin is needed to display this content."
> And especially so if ";foo=bar" worked in the past, and still worked on another common
> platform/environment (although deprecated).
>
> I confirm that Oracle Forms runs well on Linux with Firefox and ITW. It's a pity it is hung up on a
> MIME type parameter. I wonder how many users are affected.
>
> (I applied Jiri Vanek's patch, rebuilt ITW and confirm that Oracle Forms runs well. Thank you!)

If it really worked, then it would be really nice to contact the vendor, and ask them to remove this 
strict requirement. Is it possible?

J.