jre download bundles don't extract executably

[Tim Bell]

Hi Martin
> I downloaded some of the JREs from download.java.net.
> The JRE's are packaged differently from the JDKs, for no apparent reason.
> The JDKs are .bin files.  The JREs are .jar files.  Why?

I don't know the reasoning behind this new bundling.  I tried to dig up the Bug-ID where these 
packaging changes went in, but have not found it yet.

> The JDK 6 download bundles were all .bin files.
> 
> When I extract the JREs (using java -jar )
> The resulting jre1.7.0 directory contains no executable files.

See Bug-ID 6385672 "JRE installer fails to set executable attribute on Linux"

   http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6385672

The evaluation on 6385672 seems to indicate these click-wrap .jar installers have been built 
for a long time, but were not released.  Maybe that decision changed recently.  I will ask some 
questions.

HTH - Tim