JCP News Bulletin
March 2004

Please find included below the March 2004 edition of the PMO News
Bulletin. This Bulletin is sent to JCP Members, Spec Leads and Experts
and is scheduled to be a monthly insert in your email inbox.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments, we always appreciate
your feedback.

Regards,

Corina Ulescu
on behalf of the JCP PMO




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** MARCH 2004 JCP NEWS BULLETIN**MARCH 2004 JCP NEWS BULLETIN**MARCH
2004 JCP NEWS BULLETIN **

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JCP 2.6

Starting this month the Java Community Process (JCP) is operating under
a new set of rules designed to encourage more participation by a broader
range of developers and simplify the process of creating compatible Java
technology APIs.

The JCP PMO and Executive Committees announced on March 9 the official
roll out of JCP 2.6, the most transparent and accessible iteration in
the program's evolution to date. The process enhancements give earlier
access to draft specifications to a broader group of developers and add
more value at each level of participation in an effort to make it easier
and more rewarding for developers to get involved in the Java technology
standards definition process. The Spec Lead of JSR 215, Aaron Williams,
briefed trade and developer publications. More than 40 news stories and
articles covered the JCP 2.6 launch.

For media coverage on this topic check out the following urls:

*Java Community Process To Tweak Charter
Goal is to make creation of Java standards, quicker and more public
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=48502
By Elizabeth Montalbano, CRN

*Java amendment process is revised
Earlier participation is enabled
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/09/HNjcp_1.html
By  Paul Krill, InfoWorld

*JCP 2.6 Looking for More Input
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3323291
By Jim Wagner, Internetnews.com

*Java Stewards Announce New Version of Java Community Process
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1545692,00.asp
By Darryl K. Taft, eWeek

*JCP 2.6 opens Sun's Java process
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=9093
By John K. Waters, ADTmag.com

*Java Community Process 2.6: The JCP Evolves Again
http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=44002&DE=1
By JDJ News Desk

*JCP 2.6 Evolution: New Process Released
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=24389
By Dion Almaer, TheServerSide.com

*Java standards group refreshes its procedures
The Java Community Process (JCP) announced the latest iteration of
the process and a refresh on the procedures it has followed when
adopting new specifications.
http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=129056&liArticleTypeID=1&liCategoryID=1&liChannelID=171&liFlavourID=1&sSearch=&nPage=1
By Computerweekly, Technology: EAI Tools

#####

JCP 2.6. Press Roundtable

On March 31, at Vodafone's headquarters in Duesseldorf, Germany, the JCP
PMO organized a press roundtable, "JCP Evolves Again", that launched JCP
2.6 in Europe and updated the media on the latest developments under the
JCP program. Participants included Rob Gingell, Vice President and
Fellow, Chief Engineer, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Chair of the JCP
Program; representatives of  the two JCP Executive Committees - Ed Cobb,
Vice President, Architecture & Standards, BEA Systems; Michael DeNicola,
Fujitsu; Marquart Franz, Senior Principal Engineer, Siemens Corporate
Technology; Jonathan Allin, Symbian, Product Manager, Java Technology,
Symbian; Onno Kluyt, Director, JCP PMO and Aaron Williams, Executive
Relations Manager, JCP PMO. The following reporters joined the
discussions: David Norfolk, co-executive editor, Application
Developement Advisor (UK), Lofi Dewanto, free lance reporter,
Javamagazin, PHP International (G), Kay Peter Glahn, free lance
reporter, German trade and developer publications(G). The media had the
opportunity to learn about the enhancements brought by JCP 2.6 directly
from the experts who were involved in developing the new version of the
program.

===============================================================================================
To keep updated on news about the Java Community Process (sm)(JCP sm)
program, please also visit the "News from The JCP" section of the JCP
web site - JCP.org.
===============================================================================================


===================

New JSRs
---------
**JSR 240: JAIN SLEE (JSLEE) v 1.1 - recently submitted by Open Cloud
and Sun Microsystems, Inc. - was approved by the JCP EC to continue its
development as a JCP JSR. JAIN SLEE responds to the developers' need to
work with a standard that makes JSLEE based communications applications
easier to integrate into Network Operators networks.

**A group of individual developers submitted JSR 241 - The Groovy
Programming Language, JSR 241, was approved by the JCP EC as a project
through the community. Proposed and driven by a group of individual
developers, Groovy is a complement of the Java programming language and
addresses the need for a standard programming language for writing
scripts and applications that interoperate with the entire J2SE
platform.

Community Review
----------------
**JSR 211: Content Handler API moved into Community Review and submitted
its Community Draft for approval to the JCP EC for ME. This standard
will enable J2ME applications to handle multi-media and web content and
thereby will give developers and users a seamless and integrated user
environment on mobile phones and wireless devices. The specification is
led by Sun and its Community Draft Ballot is expected to finalize on
April 12.

Public Review
-------------
**Led by Nokia Corporation, JSR 226 - Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API
for J2ME - entered Public Review this week. This API is proposed as an
optional package to be used together with several J2ME profiles. Once
finalized, the standard will bring the following capabilities to the
mobile terminals with J2ME/CLDC 1.1 support:
  - Ability to load and render external 2D vector images, stored in the
W3C SVG Tiny format. The API may be extendable to support other formats.
  - Low-level rendering API for 2D images that are scalable to different
display resolutions and aspect ratios.
Final draft is expected around mid to end of April.

**Version 3.1 of JSR 204, Unicode Supplementary Character Support, is
the first one to define characters that cannot be described by single
16-bit code points. Led by Sun, this standard defines the necessary
adjustments to the Java APIs to enable support for such characters and
enables the Java platform to continue to track the Unicode standard. Its
Public Review just closed on March 27.

**Spearheaded by Oracle, JSR 128, JESI - JSP Tag Library for Edge Side
Includes (ESI),
entered Public Review. This standard will facilitate the use of Edge
Side Include (ESI) in-markup language within a JSP application. JESI
tags simplify the declaration of cacheable dynamic fragments, content
invalidation and personalization.


Proposed Final Drafts
---------------------
**JSR 166, Concurrency Utilities, dubbed "the benchmark for JCP 2.6"
because it has tested many of the program enhancements brought by JCP
2.6, recently moved into Proposed Final Draft. Until now programmers
have been forced to implement their own higher level concurrency
facilities, often incorrect or inefficient. JSR 166 offers a standard
set of concurrency utilities which will ease the task of writing a wide
variety of multi threaded applications and generally improve the quality
of the applications that use them. The JSR Expert Group is led by Doug
Lea, professor at State University of New York Oswego.

**IBM leads JSR 95, J2EE Activity Service for Extended Transactions, now
in Proposed Final Draft. This standard will provide a low-level
architecture for Workflow Engines, Component Management Middleware, an
EJB Container and other systems to use to create advanced transaction
implementations. The J2EE Activity Service for Extended Transactions is
based upon the technologies that are defined and standardized as part of
the Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition. Specifically, the Activity
Service leverages concepts and mechanisms defined by Java Transaction
API (JTA), Enterprise JavaBeansTM (EJB) and JDBC specifications.

Final Release
-------------
**After a vote of approval from the JCP EC on March 1, JSR 127
JavaServer Faces posted its final release now available for download
here. Led by Sun, this standard defines an architecture and APIs which
simplify the creation and maintenance of Java Server application GUIs.
To find out more details about the benefits brought by JSR 127 to
developers make sure you check out the Open Letter addressed by the
co-spec leads Ed Burns and Craig McClanahan to the community. It's an
invitation to the entire Java technology community to contribute to the
future direction of JavaServer Faces, download the Reference
Implementation and begin working with it to build your next application.
Send comments to jsfaces-feedback@sun.com

**JSR 22, JAIN SLEE, driven by Open Cloud and Sun Microsystems posted
its final release this month. This project developed the JAIN Service
Creation Environment (SCE) and the Service Logic Execution Environment
(SLEE) API Specification. These APIs will provide service developers,
whether independent software vendors, service providers or network
equipment providers, with a common model and a consistent run-time
environment for developing and deploying network services in Java. To
find out more and access the download, go to the JCP.org JSR page.

**JSR 79, JAIN APIs for the MEGACO protocol, led by Hughes Software
Systems delivered its final release early this month after a Final
Approval Ballot from the JCP EC. This standard describes  the Java API
for call control in the Telecommunications and Internet industry. It
allows for the rapid creation and deployment of dynamic telephony
services into a Java telephony platform.

**JSR 172 J2ME Web Services Specification, spearheaded by Sun, moved
into final this month and made its final release available for download
from the JSR web page. This specification defines an optional package
that provides standard access from J2ME to web services. Make sure you
check it out and learn how it can help you with your development needs.

Maintenance Review
-------------------
**Developed by Sun, JSR 115, Java Authorization Contract for Containers,
is currently in Maintenance Review. This JSR defines new
java.security.Permission classes to satisfy the J2EE role-based,
authorization model. It fills in the need for a standard specification
for the mapping of container access decisions to operations on J2SE
permission objects obtained from J2SE policy providers.

**JSR 151, Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition 1.4 (J2EE 1.4)
Specification, led by Sun, introduces a change to the final draft of
this specification to allow customers to choose the security policy they
think it's appropriate for their needs. This change will also allow
customers to decide whether to run with or without a security manager
since in some environments the protections provided by a security
manager are less important than the performance cost of using a security
manager. With these changes customers are given the freedom to decide
priorities for themselves in terms of choosing protection over
performance.

**The Sun-led JSR 59 published the J2SE 1.5 ("Tiger") Beta 1 Change Log
for Maintenance Review. The Maintenance Review is scheduled to close on
April 12.

===============================================================================================
If you propose a new JSR or an important event happens in the life of
the JSR you are currently leading such as advancement to an important
stage in the JCP review process or moving into Final Release and you
would like it to be spotlighted in the next issue of  or included in FOCUS ON JSRs - front page section of JCP.org -
please make sure you send us a write up briefly indicating your JSR's
benefits to developers, its uniqueness and innovative nature, or other
reasons why it should be a candidate for SPOTLIGHT ON JSRs or for the
JCP.org web site section FOCUS ON JSRS. You can email your proposals to
Liz Cadd at liz.cadd@sun.com no later than the 15 of each month.
===============================================================================================


============================
- LogOn Web Days - OMG Conference, 04/01/04 - 05/05/04 - JCP is
sponsoring this event
- TheServerSide Symposium, 05/06/04 - 05/08/04, Las Vegas (JCP is
sponsor)
- 10 - 11 May 2004 JCP Training Europe in Grenoble, France - Sun Campus;
the session presentations will be made available to participants on site
and via email for those on the phone
- SunNetwork Shanghai, 05/25-26, 2004, Shanghai, PRC (JCP participation
TBD)
- JavaOne SF,06/28-07/01, 2004 (JCP participates)
- SunNetwork SF, 09/16-18, 2004, San Francisco, CA  (JCP participation
TBD)

#####


========================


- 28 Jun - 1 Jul 2004 JavaOne at Moscone in San Francisco - Please be
advised the PMO will be at the conference and available only on a very
limited basis.
- 5 Jul - 9 Jul 2004 PMO Summer vacation - No CR/(PR ballot under JCP
2.6) can start 7 Jul 04 -  No 2-week ballot can start on 7 Jul 04.
- 7 - 8 Sep 2004 JCP Training East Coast in Burlington MA - Sun Campus.
- 5 Oct - 15 Nov 2004 EC Elections.
- 16 - 23 Nov 2004 EC Change over - No 1-week ballot can start on 16 Nov
2004. No 2-week ballot can start on 9/16 or 23 Nov 04.
- 30 Nov 2004 newly elected EC is taking office.
- 27 Dec - 31 Dec PMO Winter vacation - No 1-week ballot can start on 28
Dec 04 - No 2-week ballot can start on either 21 or 28 Dec 04 - No
2-week ballot can start on 14 Dec 04.


--------------------------------
Are you planning a press release announcing a new JSR submission or a
milestone in the life of your JSR? Or maybe you would like to highlight
to the media the final release of your JSR? Would you like to inform the
press about the innovative character of your JSR, its impact on
developers' work, the numerous opportunities it is creating for vendors
and their customers or other outstanding contributions of your JSR to
the definition and development of Java binary standards? Or would you
like a refresher on the "JCP Communications Guidelines" or perhaps hook
up your PR representative with a PR practitioner familiar with the
workings of the program? For this and similar type of activities there's
help and advice available now directly from the JCP Program Management
Office. Email your questions to the JCP PR manager, Corina Ulescu, at
corina.ulescu@sun.com, or call at 408-276-6159.

#####


** CONTACT INFORMATION **
--------------------------
Here is how to contact the Program Office:
- http://jcp.org/en/jsr/proposal: to submit proposals for new JSRs.
- spec-submit@jcp.org: to send in your draft and/or final specification
documents and related materials (as .pdf or Zip archive, please. Other
formats will not be posted).
- participant-access@jcp.org: in case you misplaced your Member
password....
- pmo@jcp.org: to reach the PMO.