[Openjnlp-devel] Optional packages/standard extensions (op/se) via JNLP

[Markus K. <Mar...@mp...>]

I come back to the question of sharing op/se  under an improved scheme.
The question is about a year old.

The background:
Optional packages/standard extensions are installed by copying jar-files
in JRE/lib/ext.
Using JNLP, this is the only way, for Applets there exist more options.

copying files to lib/ext is the last thing you want to do.

I want to propose (in the JSR) to extend the JNLP specification to
include a new tag <extensionjar>, which will set the JVM to tread the
specified class as if loaded from lib/ext.

Find details attached.

I would like to discuss the following:
Given an element <extensionjar>, would it be easy to share extensions?
I believe yes.
The situation would become the following:

---------------------------
<jnlp>
...
<resources>
...
<jar href="xyz".
<extensionjar="http://foo/bar__Vwhatever.jar">
...
----------------------------

The advantage of using the internet as the namespace is that it resolves
all the version/naming conflicts of lib/ext (the DLL-hell for Java).

I see a problem in the mix of certificates used.
The jar files will have different certificates.
Currently, all jar within a <jnlp> description has to be signed with the
same certificate (if signed at all).

In order to share a op/se, there are number of options:
- write a <jnlp> wrapper,
- release the restrictions.

I don't know what is better.

Please tell me your thoughts.

-Markus