I was not talking about something like Web Start and the JRE. The JRE was a centrally-managed software that determined the runtime for all Java applications. I don't think it's a good idea for one party to determine the runtime for applications written by others.
It is better for your applications to manage their own runtime in a way that does not interfere with others. That is not what Web Start or OpenWebStart do; what they do is discouraged, even if you are used to it, because it makes global decisions over the user's environment that apply beyond the application itself.
> Ideally, I would have all of these apps share a common JVM so that they are not running multiple garbage collectors, but I realize this is a capability that most have simply discarded.
I'm not sure that one JVM doing more work would necessarily be better than multiple ones, but since you now control the runtime, you can do that if you like. Use a launcher that runs all of your applications JARs in one VM; since you control the applications, too, you could make sure that they are well isolated.
It is better for your applications to manage their own runtime in a way that does not interfere with others. That is not what Web Start or OpenWebStart do; what they do is discouraged, even if you are used to it, because it makes global decisions over the user's environment that apply beyond the application itself.
> Ideally, I would have all of these apps share a common JVM so that they are not running multiple garbage collectors, but I realize this is a capability that most have simply discarded.
I'm not sure that one JVM doing more work would necessarily be better than multiple ones, but since you now control the runtime, you can do that if you like. Use a launcher that runs all of your applications JARs in one VM; since you control the applications, too, you could make sure that they are well isolated.