Comment 37 for bug 49068

Allen Crider wrote:
> I would want any changes made to go into the Sun code where it
> would be maintained as part of the upstream version of the JVM.
Yes, you are right. I was only asking because I thought maybe it would be a small patch, which Ubuntu manages quite a few, in which case it would not be too unusual. If it's a major undertaking - I agree full heartedly.

> And as Java is supposed to be cross-platform and provide better
> security, there may be a good reason for it not depending on the
> operating system for the timezone database.
I'm afraid I don't agree with that - the Java platform does not guarantee EXACT runtime results regardless of the platform - they (JVM architects) are not naive and we all know that there are, and always will be, differences. For example, the Java2D module uses DirectX on Windows, and OpenGL or X11 on Linux/UNIX. This is a rational design - all operating systems provide pretty much the same set of services, only in different APIs - Java simply wants to abstract these different APIs, and does so very well. Time & Date is simply another API the OS provides, IMO.

Of course, that's a rant I should save for Sun... ;-)

> However, I don't know whether such a change would fix the problem I
> reported anyway. The problem I have is that the JVM is sometimes unable
> to determine which time-zone it is in.
I think it will solve it, because finding out in which time-zone should be done by calling one of the shared libraries the OS provides that does this (I'm assuming there is such a lib...) rather than duplicate the code, which undoubtedly has already been written by someone.

Anyway - it's just an opinion and as I said, I agree this should be directed to Sun and not Ubuntu.
Cheers.