Re: [libreoffice-users] LibO/Java Issue from InfoWorld Article

And note that 3.5 is the install with Recommended next to it on the LO 
download page.
I am still recommending 3.3 as I was hoping 3.5 would fix the things I 
didn't like in 3.4.
steve

On 2012-03-11 13:03, Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi :)
> This email contains only  my own personal opinions.  I'm not even a member of TDF let alone any kind of representative. 
>
> Java releases new version frequently, and each release seems to primarily be to fix security problems with the previous release.  Allegedly Java 7 has been compromised and allegedly there is already malware out in the wild that can exploit it!  Java 7 has not even been released yet! 
>
> LibreOffice is writing out any dependance on java as quickly as reasonably possible but it is also doing a number of other things at the same time.  It has consolidated long-running forks of OOo such as Go-oo, hugely increased functionality and tidied the code to the point of making it 20-30% smaller. 
>
> The new 3.5.0 release is the first release in a new branch.  General wisdom is to wait until the first service pack, in this case the 3.5.1.  The latest stable version is the 3.4.5.  With OpenSource software there are often 2 branches, a "stable" branch and a "new features" or "development" branch.  That often confuses people that are new to OpenSource.  Ubuntu has a lot of trouble explaining it's LTS releases.  A lot of people that are new to OpenSource have been using LibreOffice.  Unfortunately the Web-design Team chose this moment to only show the 1 branch on the main downloads page and chose the more exciting release rather than the 'old' stable one. 
>
> It's sad that the author happened to choose this particular time to do the review and didn't try out any of the other releases of LibreOffice but that is just the way life works. 
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
> --- On Sat, 10/3/12, Stephen Leibowitz<librestephen@gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> From: Stephen Leibowitz<librestephen@gmail.com>
> Subject: [libreoffice-users] LibO/Java Issue from InfoWorld Article
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Date: Saturday, 10 March, 2012, 4:10
>
> An article recently appeared in the online publication InfoWorld
> titled, “LibreOffice 3.5: The best Office killer yet.” The article is
> at:
> http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/libreoffice-35-the-best-office-killer-yet-187534
>
> The author discussed getting LibO to work with Java:
> “Worse, LibreOffice's Java interface is finicky. I tried installing
> the latest Java 7, but LibreOffice said my JRE was "defective." When I
> tried again with Java 6, the same applications crashed without
> explanation. I eventually got it working, but installing and
> reinstalling the various components wasted a lot of time, which
> doesn't bode well for unattended installations.”
>
> I had an email exchange with the author. I wrote to him these two paragraphs:
>
> Oracle’s Java website has a page that starts, “Why is Java SE 7 not
> yet available on java.com?” Version 7 is currently only recommended
> for developer testing. (http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java7.xml)
>
> I installed LibO 3.5.0 on a Windows system with Java 6. That
> installation and the use of the Java-dependent Base application in
> LibO were normal.
> ********
>
> The author wrote back a detailed description of his attempt. It ends
> with a suggestion that it should be forwarded to the “LibreOffice
> folks”, so I have attached it below. Does anyone have any ideas?
>
> ********
> What I did was this:
>
>     1. Installed LibreOffice 3.5.0 without having a JRE installed
> (because that's one use case for the suite). I used a clean VM of
> Windows 7 with the latest updates implied, but no other extraneous
> software that could interfere with my tests.
>     2. Launched the LibreOffice Start icon. It seemed to go through
> some sort of "first run" procedure, which produced a series of errors
> about a missing JVM. I remember having to dismiss about 4-5 Java error
> boxes. Then nothing seemed to happen.
>     3. Launched the LibreOffice Start icon a second time. This time it
> worked and I saw the Start Center, and I was able to launch all the
> applications, as expected.
>     4. Base, of course, didn't work. When I tried to create a database
> I saw the Java error message again, which I expected.
>     5. Downloaded and installed Java. I used Java SE 7 because A.) it's
> the latest one, and it's the one Oracle is encouraging everyone to
> get, so you can't expect casual office-suite users not to use it; and
> B.) the LibreOffice folks do explicitly say that while there were
> problems with Java 7 for a while, it is now supported.
>     6. Launched Base. At the point that it would have given me the
> "missing JVM" error message, now I just got a spinning hourglass icon.
> After a while, Windows gave me a message saying "the program has
> stopped responding." When I dismissed the error, LibreOffice would
> exit. I tried launching various LibreOffice components at various
> ways, but every time it tried to invoke Java, I got the same result.
> Waiting several minutes at the "stopped responding" dialog did not
> help.
>     7. Downloaded Java SE 6, installed that. Now everything was the
> same as in Step 6, only instead of "stopped responding," now I got an
> immediate crash and the programs would exit.
>     8. Uninstalled Java SE 7. No change.
>     9. Uninstalled Java SE 6, then downloaded and installed the entire
> JDK 6 (including the compilers, libraries, tools, etc.). No change.
>    10. At this point, I thought, "Maybe something is wrong with this
> Windows install. Maybe Java doesn't work on it at all." So I launched
> one of the sample apps that came with the JDK. That worked, confirming
> that Java worked.
>    11. So I launched Base again and ... this time it worked. I didn't
> get any error message. I could create databases with Base, and
> everything seemed to work fine.
>    12. Just to see, I downloaded and installed Java SE 7. This time,
> everything still worked.
>    13. I uninstalled JDK 6, so now I only had Java SE 7. Everything still worked.
>
> So as far as I can tell, the JRE needed some kind of first-run
> initialization (maybe it needs to setup some Registry keys or
> something) and whichever way the LibreOffice applications were trying
> to invoke the JRE was launching it in an unstable state. Once I ran
> the other Java app, it stabilized, and after that LibreOffice worked.
>
> So that's weird, but it's not the kind of thing I think should be
> detailed in a review. Who knows what was really happening? But it
> happened, and on a very, very clean Windows machine (cleaner than any
> machine that has been in use). And I didn't do anything "weird." All I
> did was click the installer icons in the most obvious way. So I still
> thought the Java issue was worth mentioning, but only as a gotcha --
> and to say that I don't think it makes sense to have a hybrid suite
> like this, and that the Document Foundation should try to remove the
> Java dependencies.
>
> P.S. I know, I should probably forward this information to the
> LibreOffice folks somehow.
> ********

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