Open JVM Integration (OJI) support in Java Plug-in

By Stanley Man-Kit Ho


Introduction

        Open JVM Integration (OJI) is an initiative between Sun and Netscape to enable third-party JVM vendors to plug in their JRE as the native Java environment in the upcoming Netscape 6 browser. A set of OJI APIs are defined by Netscape and are exposed in Netscape 6. Java Plug-in will support the full set of OJI APIs, and be bundled with Netscape 6 on Win32 and Solaris. This document summaries the features that OJI will enable.

 

OJI Features

        The basic goal for OJI is to match every single feature in the browser native JVM. The following are the features enabled by OJI:

 

Backward Compatibility

        Since OJI will enable Java 2 to be used as the default browser VM to execute applets in the Internet, these applets may not work if they use specific browser VM APIs or depends on specific browser VM behavior. Although we will ensure backward compatibility between Java 2 and Netscape VM as much as possible. However, we will neither guarantee nor commit that the compatibility will be 100%. Some applets may work with Java 2 out-of-the box. Some other applets may work with Java 2 by a simple recompilation. However, some other applet developers may find themselves spending times to port their applets to Java 2. This is our responsibility (Sun, in general) to ensure that customers are aware of this compatibility issues, and should not expect 100% backward compatibility between Java 2 and Netscape VM.

 

Existing Java Plug-in Features

        Although OJI will enable all the OJI features in Java Plug-in, all the existing functionalities in Java Plug-in will still continue to work in Netscape 6. Therefore, customers can not only take advantages of the new features available through OJI, but they can also leverage the existing Java Plug-in features in Netscape 6 as well.

      
Conclusion

        OJI support is a new feature in the upcoming Java Plug-in release. It will enable Java 2 as the default browser Java runtime on Win32 and Solaris, and provide latest Java 2 functionalities to applets in the Internet and the Intranet through Netscape 6. Since Netscape 6 will be distributed with Java 2 to millions to users, OJI will enable Java 2 to compete head-to-head with native JVM in IE and older version of Navigator. 


If there is any comment, please send it to stanley.ho@eng.sun.com.


Revision History

Revision Modification Date Author(s)
First Draft 07/05/2000 Stanley Ho