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Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
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PMO |
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Oracle |
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ME EC |
SE/EE EC |
Total attendance: 13 |
Total attendance: 11 |
| Since 75% of the ME EC was present, that EC was quorate for
this meeting Since 75% of the SE/EE EC was present (there being only 14 members at the moment), that EC was quorate for this meeting |
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Personnel changes
Patrick reported several personnel changes and noted that with Tim Peierls' resignation
there were now two seats to fill on the SE/EE EC: one ratified seat (originally
held by Doug Lea, to which Hologic was nominated but not elected) and one
elected seat (vacated by Tim.) He noted that a third seat would open up if Apache
followed through with their threat to resign. He pointed out that this would
necessitate a special election soon, but noted that the date for the election
had not yet been set.
Werner Keil asked whether Tim's seat would be filled by another
individual.
Patrick responded that there are no quotas for individuals on the EC -
anyone (corporation, institution, or individual) can nominate themselves.
Patrick welcomed Stefano Andreani to the ME EC and asked him to introduce
himself. See here for
a brief biography of him.
JSR ballots
Patrick reported on the results of the four Java SE ballots, all of which were approved:
He noted also that a fifth new JSR was approved:
Patrick apologized for Oracle's late response to questions raised by EC members
during the ballot period and reported that Oracle is working to become
more "agile" in
answering community questions.
Sean Sheedy expressed disappointment that the ballot wasn't delayed to allow
for more socialization and discussion, suggesting that it could even have been
withdrawn and re-submitted later. He noted that many of those who voted "yes"
expressed reservations in their comments, and suggested that these issues might
be raised again when the JSRs reached the final approval stage.
Mike Milinkovich stated that unless the modularity implementation in Java
SE 8 accommodated the OSGI ecosystem Eclipse would have to vote "no" on that
JSR later in the development cycle.
Scott Jameson stated that HP did not expect to see significant changes
in the licensing terms.
John Rizzo said that EC members wanted to see all possible licenses that Oracle
might offer. Patrick responded that the Spec Lead had no obligation to publish
them all, pointing out that Oracle has disclosed the "standard" licenses
that are available to everyone. John responded that if the Spec Lead can offer
special terms to a licensee then this amounts to discrimination. Patrick replied
that since the disclosed licenses are available to everyone this is the exact
opposite of discrimination.
Mike DeNicola seaid he hoped Oracle will take the licensing concerns under
consideration, and improve them. Patrick responded that the JCP.next working
group could discuss the changes members wanted to see, but cautioned that they
shouldn't expect too much.
John Rizzo said that EC members simply wanted Oracle to
follow the rules that everyone else is following.
Josh Bloch stated that the press release from Oracle that morning, claiming "overwhelming
majority" support,
was exaggerated and misleading since the JSRs received only 12 votes, and many
of those who voted yes expressed serious concerns in their comments.
Patrick responded that Oracle executives were well aware that they needed to
do a better job of communicating.
ME licensing
[John Rizzo requested the addition of this agenda item despite Patrick's
concern that the discussion would be one-sided, since he did not have time
to bring the relevant Oracle people into the discussion.]
John Rizzo stated that MIDP3 (JSR 271) had a reciprocal licensing agreement
that was overwhelmingly approved by a 14-1 vote of the ME EC. Patrick noted that
Sun abstained in the final vote. [Later review revealed that Sun abstained because
of their serious concerns about the licensing terms, which they discussed in their
comments.]
John said that the license terms for JSR 135 were identical to those of MIDP3,
yet Oracle's lawyers have said that the terms are unacceptable. He
argued that the JCP's Process Document doesn't mandate a legal
review and that Oracle shouldn't be able to block the release of the RI and TCK.
He reiterated that the license is identical to one that has been
accepted by the community and asked the PMO to post the final materials
for Maintenance Release. He stated that whether or not they did so, the materials
are available on Aplix's website and he encouraged developes to download them. He
repeated that Oracle had no right to veto the finalization of a JSR.
Mike DeNicola responded that If Oracle's lawyers are reversing decisions previously
made by Sun's lawyers then implementors could not know whether existing licenses
are still considered legitimate, and this is unacceptable.
Roger Riggs pointed out that the change logs
for JSR 135 gave no indication that the licensing terms had been radically
changed from the previous release and suggested that the Process Document ought
to require such notice.
John Rizzo responded that Aplix sent the materials early to the PMO
for review, and that they assumed the EC wouldn't have a problem with the
license terms since they are identical to a previously-approved license.
Roberto Chinnici presented the Java EE team's JSR plans
(see presentation,)
focussing on JPA
2.1 and JAX-RS 2.0.
Josh Bloch asked whether Roberto had said that he believed
multiple open-source implementations are a good thing, and whether this applies
to all platforms. Roberto responded that he couldn't speak for the other platforms
but that this had worked well for Java EE.
Roger Riggs asked whether the client-side of JAX-RS be implemented
on other platforms. Roberto responded that it probably could, though it was
not architected that way now.
Jason Gartner asked how much demand there is from the developer community
for an EE7 release, particularly since SE7 is only "half a release."
Roberto responded that they are getting good feedback and that there is
strong demand for JMS, Servlets, and Web-sockets. He argued that a platform
release is a natural step and preferable to piecemeal changes.
Jason responded that these proposals would make a large platform larger
at a time when people are looking for more agility. He argued that there has
been no significant adoption of EE6 yet and wondered whether Roberto was
moving too fast in proposing EE7.
Roberto responded that adoption is always slow and argued that if they
waited for significant adoption of the previous release before starting work
on the next there would be a 5 or 6 year release cycle.
Jason suggested that it might be better to focus on the individual JSRs and not
on the platform.
Roberto replied that it's reasonable to have alternating small and big releases.
EE7, being based on SE7, would be small while EE8 - including modularity - would
be big.
Werner Keil asked whether there would be any modularity changes
in EE7, perhaps based on OSGI. Roberto responded that modularity will be introduced
in Java SE 8, while Java EE7 will be based on SE7. He did acknowledge that they
might make some changes in anticipation
of EE7 apps running on EE8.
Patrick invited Roberto to come back during the January meeting to tell the
ECs more about his plans.
JCP.next logistics
Patrick reported that the first meeting of the JCP.next Working Group will be
held during the week beginning December 13. He promised to poll
the members for a suitable time. It was also agreed that a face-to-face meeting
of the Working Group would be held on the Wednesday afternoon after the full
face-to-face EC meeting in January.
Ballot stuffing
Patrick discussed an attempt at "ballot stuffing" that
occurred during the October 2010 elections (see the
PMO presentation.) He reported that a company that was running for
an elected seat encouraged its employees to join the JCP as individuals so they
could vote for their employer. The attempt was unsuccessful, partly because
the applications were not processed in time, but he warned that someone might
try this again. He noted that there is nothing that the PMO can do to
prevent such manipulation but promised to shine the light of
publicity on any offenders. He suggested that EC members consider a modification
to the Process Document to prevent this kind of behavior.
2011 meeting schedule
EC members discussed the 2011 meeting schedule (see the
PMO presentation,) agreeing in principle to face-to-face
meetings in Korea in the Spring and at AT&T in Atlanta in the Fall. Patrick
agreed to talk to the Korean EC members (neither of whom was present at this
meeting due to the time-difference) to discuss hosting an EC meeting, and to
poll EC members for the best times for face-to-face meetings. He also asked members
to let him know whether any of the suggested conference call dates would be inconvenient
for them.
EC members briefly discussed how they might engage with JCP members during the
year. Patrick suggested a "meet the EC" meeting during JavaOne in October,
and the possibility of meeting with local JUG members at some point during our
face-to-face meetings.
Jason Gartner suggested that the JavaOne conferences held outside of the US would
be a good opportunity to meet with JCP members. Patrick noted that the plans
for 2011 seemed to be limited to Russia and India, and that there was not a significant
JCP presence in either of these countries. He agreed that the ECs should watch
the JavaOne plans closely, and should seize the opportunity to "piggy-back" on
JavaOne meetings wherever this made sense. (The next time these events are held
in Brazil and China, for example.)
Jason also suggested that the September face-to-face meeting include a session
during which Oracle would preview its JavaOne announcements to the ECs, obviating
the need for a special meeting like the one that was held prior to JavaOne 2010.
