How could we ask Apple to provide an API ?

[Damien Guillaume]

I had yet another problem with my Java applets on Firefox. They use the 10 years old JDK1.1, so my patience is tried. I don't blame Steven for that, he's doing a fantastic job going through undocumented APIs and fixing bugs to help us. But Apple should really provide a decent stable API to let browers like Firefox run Java applets.
But what would be the most efficient way to ask them to provide an API, or at least help javaplugin developers ? Apple usually behaves like a black hole...

[Steven Michaud]

My hunch is that Apple will never provide an equivalent for their
JavaEmbedding API that all browsers can use.

One reason (possibly the main reason) is (as I've found out) that this
would be a _lot_ of work -- Apple would have to do almost as much as I
have.  And this work would require the cooperation of at least three
different divisions (the "Core" developers, the WebKit developers and
the Java developers) -- always difficult in a large company like
Apple.

Another reason (more likely the main one) is the corrupting influence
of having an "official" browser (Safari).  Since they've done this,
they've (more or less) acted as if no other browsers exist (at least
no other browsers than WebKit-based ones).  They allowed themselves to
design a JVM that's very difficult to use with Carbon-based browsers,
and a WebKit that provides only minimal support for Carbon-based apps.
And they've made it very difficult to justify devoting resources to
resolving these problems (since they don't effect Safari and other
WebKit-based Cocoa browsers).

So the Java Embedding Plugin is likely to remain the only game in town
for the forseeable future.  Yes, I'm only able to address problems as
they're found (by myself or other people).  But I've done a _lot_ of
this kind of work over the last couple of years, and (I think) the
newly discovered problems have tended to become more and more obscure
(effecting only very small numbers of applets).  It's no fun if _your_
applet doesn't work right ... but I've generally been able to fix
problems for which I've received decent bug reports.

Some might suggest that Apple should help me in my work.  After all,
the existence of the Java Embedding Plugin has taken quite a lot of
pressure off them.  But so far I haven't solicited (or received) any
help from Apple, and I tend to think that's the right approach.  I
_don't_ want to have to receive information from them under NDA.