I'm sure this question has been posted but I've not found any
definitive answer.

I maintain a product line that consists of a dedicated Linux system
running Java to provide a GUI interface as a control system for
underlying hardware. I've been working to move to jdk 1.5 (not hard
but I'm busy) and now this new DST thing which is not covered by the
version I've been porting to (1.5.0-b64) makes me want to rething
about going to the latest 1.6. It seems every version change had
problems in the beginning and I didn't even try 1.6 because of that.
Now I'm thinking about it again.

Can anyone give me a level of comfort about just going to the latest
jdk and jre? Is there an advantage to going to the latest 1.6 versus
the last 1.5? The liability of 1.6 is, of course, it's not as tested
as the previous releases but, as java has matured, I think that some
of that may be pretty minimal. I don't have enough data to judge.

Can I get opinions? Any input is greatly appreciated.