java version detection

[kjdon]

I saw this discussion in an email from David B, and thought I'd add a ticket to make sure that it has been thought about and implemented if its a good idea.

--- As a result of your initial bug report, Oran, Max and I had started to discuss the idea of checking more carefully the version and vendor of Java being used as a general approach (regardless of OS you're running on) as a way to give better feedback to the user.

My thinking is we should print out a warning if the Java property "java.vendor" turns out to be GNU's, but for now let any of the other ones through without a warning. I don't know for certain, but I suspect the JRE you get on Windows will be Microsoft branded, and we don't want people using a standard Windows solution to be continually pestered with a warning when it's been running on the OS untroubled for a long time.

Oran -- we should put this check in both the installer and GLI/GEMs. Also, can you update GLI/GEMs to print out the java.vendor property as part of the start up sequence. That way we can monitor it, longterm, and begin to get a better feeling for what sort of variations we might see in this field.