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The celebrations that marked the tenth anniversary of Java
technology have wrapped up, but the successes of the Java Community
Process (JCP) Program and the Executive Committees (EC) that guide
it keep on coming. In interviews conducted shortly after the JCP EC
elections of December 2005 the newly elected and ratified members of the
Micro Edition (ME) and Standard/Enterprise Edition (SE/EE) ECs shared
their thoughts about Java technology's evolution and its future. They
are unanimous in their belief that the technology has come a long way
and the combination of teamwork and hard work will continue to make
its future bright. Check out their views.
SAS, Rich Main
SAS provides a new generation of business intelligence software and
services that create enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at
about 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the
FORTUNE Global 500. As a Java platform consumer rather than a platform
provider, SAS understands the challenges and opportunities related to
deploying end-user Java applications in large-scale, enterprise
environments. At SAS, representative Rich Main says the most important
issue facing the executive committee is increasing the transparency of
the JCP program. "Developers are the life blood of the community and information
is the life blood of developer," Main says. The EC's job is to ensure
that information is being provided in a timely manner so that developers
can best influence and leverage the Java standards. So the JSR expert
groups must operate in as open a manner as possible, providing frequent
status updates and engage the community for input early and often.
Main
says the most important technology now being considered in the JCP program is
the Java module system (JSR 277). This JSR goes very deep, affecting the
basic classloading semantics of Java. "It will have significant
ramifications for the Java platform and potentially even the Java
language itself," Main says. "In addition, it proposes to solve
difficult problems regarding the deployment of Java solutions and
ongoing provisioning of updates and maintenance to those solutions."
The JCP program must react to the accelerated rate of change in the software
world by streamlining the standards process and ensuring that the
efforts are relevant to the needs of the community, Main says. He says
it is essential that strategies are designed to strengthen the
"community" aspect of the Java Community Process. "Like with software
development, there is a "build vs. buy" decision that must be made for
each standards effort as well as a consideration of whether or not a
particular effort is even worth the time and energy," Main says. "In the
past, the JCP has been of the mindset that we should "let a thousand
flowers bloom". But, every good gardener knows that you will get better
overall production by prudently thinning the crop along the way."
BEA Systems, Ed Cobb
BEA Systems is a leading application infrastructure provider and major
innovator in the Java technology marketplace. BEA's representative, Ed
Cobb, oversees BEA's participation in a variety of standards and open
source organizations and is responsible for BEA's involvement in
technical collaborations with other software companies. Cobb notes that
he joined the company ten years ago. Today he is most amazed at Java
technology's "transition from a client technology to the standard for
new server-side development on the Internet.". He thinks that Java’s
success is predicated on well-defined standards creating a larger
marketplace and enhanced competition. "The JCP is still an important
source of those standards," Cobb says.
BEA has been a diligent voter in
progressing new JSRs through the process and a significant contributor
to improvements in both the Java Specification Participation Agreement
(JSPA) and the JCP program process document, Cobb said. But he adds the
most important issue now facing the committees is the increased
competition from non-Java alternatives, the rise of open source and the
ability of the JCP program to react to changes like these in the marketplace. In
the future, he sees Metadata-driven programming and non-traditional
programming language becoming more important than procedural languages
like Java. "Interoperability is becoming more important to customers
than portability," he says.
SAP, Michael Bechauf
As vice president of SAP NetWeaver Standards, Michael Bechauf is
responsible for defining SAP's industry standards strategy. He currently
works as part of the SAP Platform Ecosystem organization, which defines
SAP's platform strategy overall. In 2001, SAP joined the JCP program.
Michael coordinates all standards-related activities of the SAP Platform
Ecosystem, so in 2002 he became SAP's primary representative on the
SE/EE Executive Committee. Bechauf says the EC will help guide Java
technology to become "the foundation for a next generation service
composition platform that can rapidly deliver applications that support
those business processes deemed most critical for a company."
Bechauf is
dedicated to Web Services and the need to simplify the Java platform and
make it better suited for business application programmers. The JCP must
continue to make Java simpler and easier to use by reducing the number
of technical choices that Java developers face, Bechauf said.
Hani Suleiman
Hani Suleiman, a self-described "keen and passionate Java developer
since 1998," says openness and transparency are perhaps the biggest
issues facing the JCP program. "For example, spec leads and even individual
experts should not shy away from discussing their work with the
community at large — provided of course this is done without violating
any contracts!" says Suleiman, who serves on a number of JCP program Expert
Groups, including JSR 220, JSR 244, JSR 245, JSR 250, and JSR 277.
Likewise, the EC itself should be a bit more transparent to both the
community at large and the Expert Groups both in terms of its mission
and its activities, Suleiman says. But looking to the future, he also
says he sees the process becoming more open and transparent, with far
greater participation. And in terms of technology in the Java world, he
sees a big push towards modularization. "The platform is constantly
growing, and there is a significant push towards a more 'a la carte'
approach," he said. This will probably start manifesting itself for the
Java SE 7 timeline, he added. "I personally also have big hopes for Java
on the desktop, an area which has received a lot of love and attention
for Java SE 6," Suleiman said.
Intel, Wayne Carr
Intel is a leading supplier and innovator of microprocessors and other
silicon building blocks being used in the vast array of devices and
computing platforms where Java technology is being deployed. Intel
representative Wayne Carr has worked on TV set-tops, video conferencing,
operating systems, networking, multimedia and on advanced research in
robotics -- and has been coding in Java technology since the language
was introduced. Carr says that two key issues facing the EC are how to
cooperate more effectively with other standards and open source
organizations and how to ensure a level playing field for independent
implementations of JSRs while retaining Java’s important promise of
compatibility.
As an example of the issue of working with other
organizations, JSR 198 and JSR 277 could be viewed as JCP program producing
direct competition for ongoing work in the open source Eclipse
organization, he says. "The Executive Committee needs to look into how
best to coexist and cooperate with other related organizations," Carr
says. Standards work best where the community can agree on a common
approach for addressing areas where interoperability between competing
implementations is important, he says. On the subject of independent
implementations, TCKs are a valuable tool in ensuring compatibility, but
often there is insufficient information about what it will cost or what
conditions would be imposed to license the required TCK, Carr says. That
uncertainty can discourage potential implementers (other than the Spec
Lead) from working on JSRs or from producing implementations. "The JCP
needs to explore ways to ensure adequate disclosure of TCK licensing
terms what the licensing requirements are for implementing JCP specs, at
the outset of spec development," Carr says.
The growth of Java has been phenomenal and Java is positioned for an
exciting future, Carr says. "Java is taking off in phones, and in
consumer electronics – for example, DVD players - we may see an
explosion of the use of Java," he says. Java is strong on servers and
has a whole new opportunity on the desktop in Linux, he adds. Carr also
said that Sun's special role in the JCP program which effectively gives it a
veto over many of the specs (language and platform specs) and over any
process changes should be addressed. "As trust increases on all sides,
we would expect the JCP program to move more towards a more typical standards
organization structure where all members have similar rights and
responsibilities," Carr said.
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