Name: mt13159 Date: 09/11/2000


Oracle requires that an applet have the ability to specify exactly which version of the plug-in (and thus, JRE) is used to load it. If that plug-in is not installed, the user should be asked to download it. This is necessary because different versions of the plug-in or JRE may have different bugs fixes or features which are required to run the product successfully. There are several parts to this requirement:

1) There must be a way for the applet to specify what version of the plug-in it requires. For example, there could be a unique MIME type and CLSID for every version of the plug-in (including minor releases and patches). This MIME type or CLSID would not be supported by any other version, allowing an applet to explicitly specify a particular version of the plug-in.

2) Different versions of the plug-in must not overwrite eachother, so multiple versions of the plug-in can be installed at the same time. For example, the name of the Netscape plug-in DLL must not be the same from version to version.

3) The plug-in should load the JRE that it is installed with. If the user installs a new JRE or plug-in, it should not cause an existing plug-in to load a different JRE.

4) It must be possible for the user to load one web page which requires one version of the plug-in, then navigate to a new page which loads a different version of the plug-in. Ideally, the user would be able to have two browser windows open, each running a different version of the plugin simultaneously.

Currently, these requirements are not met. The plug-in and JRE an applet will run in are determined by arbitrary factors, such as what web pages the user previously visited or what JRE they most recently installed. This is obviously unacceptable for an enterprise deployment situation, where instability needs to be kept to an absolute minimum.

Note that these issues are addressed by Java Web Start. However, Oracle's products must run within the browser window, not as separate applications, in order for customers to perceive them as "web applications".
(Review ID: 109336)
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