Happy Bastille Day!
The IDV 2.7u1 release has been recompiled and refreshed to be backward
compatible with systems still running Java SE 5 (aka Java 1.5). You
can download the release at:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/idv/2_7u1
This is being done to support Mac OS-X users since the default version
of Java on that platform is Java 5 and there is no Java SE 6 for older
PPC systems. For Intel based Macs, Java 6 is available at:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/Java_for_Mac_OS_X_10_5_Update_4
Unfortunately, Apple does not plan to support Java 6 on the older systems.
This will be the last release to support Java SE 5. Sun has announced
that Java SE 5 support will end in October which means it will not
provide updates (e.g. security fixes) after that date. All the IDV
installers have been including Java 6 since IDV 2.6 and Java 6 has been
available on most platforms for over 2 1/2 years. There are features of
Java SE 6 that we would like to use to improve the capabilities of the
IDV. Also, the underlying netCDF-Java library will be using Java 6 for
it's next release in September which will require us to move completely
to Java 6.
We understand that this will impact some IDV users. Unfortunately,
security concerns, reliance on other packages and new features in Java 6
require that we move to the current version of Java.
The IDV Developers.
