JVM requirement for jBPM 4

[tom.baeyens]

Once and a while i start thinking of jBPM 4. jBPM 4 is targetted somewhere in the first half of 2007.

Do you think that by that time it would be OK to require a Java 5 JVM ? Or should we writing it against 1.4.2 ?

Are tools like retroweaver an option to transform Java 5 source code into 1.4.2 byte code ? How reliable are those kinds of tools ?

thoughts ?

[koen.aers]

By that time Java 6 will be one year old and even Java 7 will probably be around. I would start dropping support for 1.4 in jBPM 4.

Regards,
Koen

[aguizar]

Many people is already running jBPM on Java 5 VMs and more will over time, so it should be a smooth transition by '07.

The web services project is written in Java 5. This project makes its code runnable in 1.4.2 using JBoss Retro. With Adrian working on it, it'll most probably be quite reliable :-)

[kukeltje]

In the company I work for we just migrated from Bea 6.1 (jdk1.3) to Bea 8 (jdk1.4) In contrast to JBoss, Bea only certifies its appservers to run on certain jdk's. So lots of people who do not use JBoss could be on older jvm's. I think we/you could write against Java 5 and use Retro to enable it to run on 1.4.2

[jimrigsbee]

JSE 5 is the way to go. I think the industry needs a little push to get going on this and JBoss can be part of the leadership in this respect.

Regards, Jim