I’ve been considering getting a new MacBook Pro – the specs are very nice, it’s a real desktop replacement, and even though there are some weird things like a slower DVD drive and a lower-res screen it would be a good computer.
<p>But there’s one thing that’s ruled it out - the lack of support for Java embedding in Rosetta, the PowerPC translation engine for Mac on Intel.</p>
<p>So, Java embedding sounds sort of obscure doesn’t it? But what it means is that lots of free software I depend on for my workflow won’t work. Firefox won’t work unless you can give up Java and Flash. 3 months ETA on that. NeoOffice/J, the OpenOffice platform for Mac won’t work either, and there’s no ETA on that.</p>
<p>Apple has a large following among Open Source geeks and they like to court the Alpha Geeks. Maybe they should reevaluate their support level for Java in Rosetta and get these things working. I remember when Steve Jobs said the Mac was going to be the premiere Java development and deployment platform.