>>>Anyone know a reason why we shouldn't change forName() to the class loader version?<<<

Yes, if you're not using the context class loader in your app but your own one. Moreover, I think that the thread context classloader may be null in certain cases (ie: when not running from a web app server).
Here is the java source code (Thread.java):

  public ClassLoader getContextClassLoader() {
if (contextClassLoader == null)
   return null;


I do not really understand the JBoss problem. It seems that the Class.forName() is called from a base class loaded with a system classloader. When and how does this happens? On which JDOM class?

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