Carrez: The real problem with Java in Linux distros

Well, when libraries gain new facilities, those facilities have to be used by something or they might as well not be there. So even if everything is backward-compatible, you have to version the libraries to indicate the addition of new facilities, *and* you have to version the applications to indicate that they require a library with those new facilities. Giving both the same version number and releasing them simultaneously seems like a not-too-confusing-to-users way to do that.