Unreliable Java -version:XXX Command-Line

In order to help the operations team administer a web application, we'd built them some command-line tools in Java.  To launch those tools, we included a helpful shell script.  Since the application required Java 1.6+, it seemed prudent to use the Java command-line option that exists for that purpose.  Accordingly, we put "-version:1.6+" in the command-line options for Java.

In testing that script, we discovered that while it seemed to work reasonably well on Windows machines, it didn't work on any of the Linux installations we tried, from Red Hat to CentOS to Unbutu, some with manually-installed Java, and others with the package install direct from the operating-system repository.

At this point, I'd have to recommend that you treat the -version:XXX option in the Java command-line as unreliable.  If you control the environment in which it's being used throughly enough to know that -version:XXX will work, then you can probably also control the version of Java being used, thus making it moot.