Java WebStart Is Dead: What Should We Do Now?

@HendrikEbbers
Karakun DevHub_
dev.karakun.com

Karakun DevHub_
@HendrikEbbersdev.karakun.com
About me
• Karakun Co-Founder
• Lead of JUG Dortmund
• JSR EG member
• JavaOne Rockstar, Java Champion
• JavaLand Programm Chair

Karakun DevHub_
About me

Karakun DevHub_
Content
History
Java 11
Workarounds
Solution?

Karakun DevHub_
History
"In computing, Java Web Start (also known as JavaWS, javaws or JAWS) is a
framework developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) that allows users to start
application software for the Java Platform directly from the Internet using a web
browser. Some key beneﬁts of this technology include seamless version updating
for globally distributed applications and greater control of memory allocation to
the Java virtual machine."
Wikipedia

Karakun DevHub_
History
2000
JSR 56 Approval

Karakun DevHub_
History
WebStart 1.0 was
released as
standalone version
20012000
JSR 56 Approval

Karakun DevHub_
History

Karakun DevHub_
History
WebStart 1.0 was
released as
standalone version
2001
WebStart 1.2 was released as
standalone version and
shipped with Java 1.4
20022000
JSR 56 Approval

Karakun DevHub_
History
2002
Java 1.4

Karakun DevHub_
History
20162002
Java 1.4
Development of
Java 9 started

Karakun DevHub_
History
"Developers of applications that rely on the Java browser plugin
need to consider alternative options such as migrating from Java Applets (which
rely on a browser plugin) to the plugin-free Java Web Start technology."
Oracle, 2016

Karakun DevHub_
History
2016
Developers should
migrate to WebStart

Karakun DevHub_
History
Spring
2018
2016
Developers should
migrate to WebStart
Oracle announces that
WebStart will be
removed in future

Karakun DevHub_
History
Spring
2018
2016
Developers should
migrate to WebStart
WebStart will be
removed in future
Autumn
2018
WebStart is
removed

Karakun DevHub_
History
Spring
2018
2016
Developers should
migrate to WebStart
WebStart will be
removed in future
Autumn
2018

Karakun DevHub_
History
20162000
Standard deﬁned
Oracle nominate
WebStart as Applet
sucessor
2018
Oracle kills
WebStart
2001
First release

Karakun DevHub_
Oracle JDK & OpenJDK
• Most developers simply downloaded Java from
Oracle
• Installer on windows / mac
• JRE with WebStart for client machines
• Mostly no developer used OpenJDK on win / mac

Karakun DevHub_
• On linux OpenJDK was already used a lot
• Oracle JDK is build based on OpenJDK
• Next to OpenJDK the Oracle JDK contains some
additional tools

Karakun DevHub_
OpenJDK 8
JVM, tools, etc. JVM, tools, etc.
Exclusive Oracle
stuﬀ
eg. Flight recorder
WebStart
Mission Control
Oracle JDK 8

Karakun DevHub_
OpenJDK 12 Oracle JDK 12
JVM, tools, etc.
equals JVM, tools, etc.

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• Oracle wants to have the content of Oracle JDK
(more or less) be equal to OpenJDK
• Therefore Oracle contributed some of the
previews content of Oracle JDK to OpenJDK
• Tools like Flight Recorder were open sourced

@HendrikEbbers
Sadly WebStart
was not open
sourced…

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Open souring is hard
• It represents your company
• Big companies like Oracle have guidelines & legal
departments need to be involved

Karakun DevHub_
Open souring is hard
• The project needs a documentation
• The project needs builds
• The projects needs to ﬁt internal quality gates
• Tests, source code quality, licence headers

@HendrikEbbers
Oracle will not
open source
WebStart

Karakun DevHub_
History
20162000
Standard deﬁned
Oracle nominate
WebStart as Applet
sucessor
2018
Oracle kills
WebStart
2001
First release
Several things happened…

Karakun DevHub_
JNLP Implementations & Tools
• Fontanus JNLP Wrapper
• netx JNLP Client
• IcedTea-Web
• Juniper
• …

Karakun DevHub_

Karakun DevHub_
• IcedTea-Web looks like the "best" solution

Karakun DevHub_
• Ok, IcedTea-Web looks like not the worst solution

Karakun DevHub_
• Ok, IcedTea-Web looks like a solution

Karakun DevHub_
• Ok, IcedTea-Web looks like a solution
• Ok, even IcedTea-Web is not a solution we want to
give our customers

Karakun DevHub_
Alternatives
• We have some open source tools to run Java based
desktop applications
• Hey wait, Oracle has this javapackager tool

@HendrikEbbers
Oracle removed
javapackager from
Java 11…

Karakun DevHub_
Alternatives
• We have some open source tools to run Java based
desktop applications
• Hey wait, Oracle has this javapackager tool
• But there is this new JLink that creates a perfect
bundle with all stuﬀ I need for my application

Karakun DevHub_
Alternatives
• There are some additional projects and tools that
help you to create Java based desktop applications
• install4J, JWrapper, IzPack
• UpdateFX, GetDown

Karakun DevHub_
Alternatives
• Install4J provides the most complete feature set
• Sadly it's not open source / free
• We can help you to migrate to install4J
• Workshop, Consulting, Licences

@HendrikEbbers
But there is more

Karakun DevHub_
Web Start @ Karakun
• We at Karakun try to reimplement the WebStart /
JNLP spec as open source
• Working together with several customers
• Try to do a crowd founding for it

Karakun DevHub_
Web Start @ Karakun
• Buy Java 11 LTS support at your favourite OpenJDK
company
• Help creating open source WebStart
• Save money against buying Oracle Java 8 support

@HendrikEbbers
Karakun@
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Java WebStart Is Dead: What Should We Do Now?

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