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The Java Community Process (JCP) program celebrates success. Members of the community nominate worthy participants, Spec Leads, and Java Specification Requests (JSRs) in order to cheer on the hard work and creativity that produces ground-breaking results for the community and industry in the Java Standard Edition (SE), Java Enterprise Edition (EE), or Java Micro Edition (ME) platforms.
The community gets together every year at the JavaOne conference to applaud in person the winners of three awards: JCP Member/Participant of the Year, Outstanding Spec Lead, and Most Significant JSR. This year's unveiling will occur Tuesday evening, October 2, at the Annual JCP Community Party held in San Francisco.
With great appreciation, now for the 10th year, the community recognizes the award nominees, listed here, with more detailed profiles below.
- Stephen Colebourne For his tireless work on JSR 310, a comprehensive and advanced date and time API for Java.
- Markus Eisele Recognized for his active work among the German Java community and his work in the JSR 342 Expert Group.
- Google For many contributions in keeping the Java platform open.
- JUG Chennai For becoming the most active JCP organization in India and a competitive service organization in the commercial marketplace.
- Werner Keil For his incredible energy and participation in seven JSRs as well as the Executive Committee.
- London Java Community and SouJava * Winner * For their historic contribution to the Adopt a JSR program and supporting Java developers through the JCP.
- Antoine Sabot-Durand Recognized for showing us all how quickly and efficiently a JSR Early Draft Release can be accomplished.
- Michael Ernst, (JSR 308, Annotations on Java Types) Michael's level-headed approach is a great example of a well-run JSR.
- Victor Grazi * Winner *, Credit Suisse, (JSR 354, Money and Currency API) For his dedicated, focused expertise in solving issues representing Money and Currencies.
- Nigel Deakin, Oracle, (JSR 343, Java Message Service 2.0) For his outstanding, thorough, and intelligent work keeping the JMS 2 EG open and moving forward at a great pace.
- Pete Muir, Red Hat, (JSR 346, Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java EE 1.1) Peter's nomination was earned by voluntarily upgrading to 2.8 in late 2011 and maintaining what were already transparent methods in running his Expert Group.
- JSR 353, API for JSON Processing, This JSR represents an important step in bringing Java into the world of the modern web.
- JSR 354, Money and Currency API, When complete, JSR 354 will provide new ways of handling monetary amounts and currency computations and will fix critical Java Number Format and Representation bugs beyond monetary values.
- JSR 350, Java State Management, This JSR has the potential to change and improve how Application Servers and Distributed Services are going to look in the near future as well as simplifying deployment in PaaS and Cloud environments.
- JSR 343, Java Message Service 2, For its role in helping to modernize JMS at a rapid pace.
- JSR 348, JSR 355 and JSR 358, JCP.Next * Winner *, These three JSRs will set the direction and procedures for the next-generation JCP.
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 JCP Member/Participant of the Year - This award recognizes the corporate or individual member (either Member or Participant) who has made the most significant positive impact on the community in the past year. Leadership, investment in the community, and innovation are some of the qualities that EC Members look for in voting for this award.
Outstanding Spec Lead - The role of Spec Lead is not an easy one, and the person who takes that responsibility must be, among other things, technically savvy, able to build consensus in spite of diverse corporate goals, and focused on efficiency and execution. This award recognizes the person who has brought together these qualities the best in the past year, in leading a JSR for the Java community (Java SE, Java EE or Java ME).
Most Significant JSR - The technology developed through the JCP expert groups is key to the success of the JCP program and helps ensure we remain a fresh and vibrant community. This award recognizes the Spec Lead and Expert Group that have introduced the most significant new JSR for the Java community (Java SE, Java EE or Java ME) in the past year.
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Stephen Colebourne
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Almost everyone wants a better date and time API, so it's easy to see the significance of JSR 310 and understand its importance to its Spec Lead, Stephen Colebourne. He points out an important distinction. "JSRs come in two types, and it's important to know what type you are working on or contributing to," says Stephen. "Those which alter Java SE are by definition more restricting - Oracle's opinion is paramount, and the JSR is not a true specification, simply an implementation that adds to the JDK in a formalised manner." By contrast, other Java EE specs are interface/API focused and intended for multiple implementations. Beyond that, he advises, "Just use Open Source principles."
Stephen says he continues to write his blog at joda.org, although only occasionally these days. "Delivering JSR-310 is more important than my writing."
Markus Eisele
Markus says that his first guiding principle is that "I believe in myself and the things I know." This gives him confidence to provide a developer's view on proposed changes for Java EE 7 and make comments on other developments in general. He sees the challenges of exclusively working via electronic communication. Because he meets very few members personally, "reading between the lines is difficult in such a situation," he says. "On top of that, I still count English as a foreign language." Those two challenges together form his second principle: "Be kind, open, neutral and ask if something is unclear." He's also careful not to over-interpret what is written. The third and last principle is derived from his relationship with the community. Hoping to encourage new ideas from others, he advises, "Respect other views and listen to them."
He adds, "I want to thank the ones following me on Twitter, reading and responding to my blog-posts, and last but not least, the German Java User Groups gathered under the roof of the iJUG e.V."
Google
Google is honored to be recognized for our support of open-source standards, and for our work with the open-source and Java communities.
JUG Chennai
Founded by Rajmahendra "Raj" Hegde, JUG Chennai joined the Java Community Process two years ago, it was the first - and is still the only - JUG from India. This JUG has also been the most active JCP organization in India, exceeding all giant companies and outsourcing kingpins based there.
Many companies actively sponsor events, but often end up keeping their staff from sustainable contributions due to constant delivery pressure. JUG Chennai managed to break that "curse," at least in the South of India and Tamil Nadu. It also organized a successful Independent Java Conference in Chennai for the second time since its founding. Raj Hedge says, "Best of all, it spawned JDuchess Chennai, a Java community run for and by women. It's likely the first JDuchess ever in India, a country where women are often still considered second-class citizens."
Werner Keil
A community member noted: "There is not a conversation that occurs in Werner's JSR's where he is not a major contributor. His erudition in every area is remarkable, especially in JSR 348 (Towards a New Version of the JCP)."
Werner's contributions include JSRs 321 (Trusted Java), 331 (Constraint Programming API), 333 (Content Repository API), 342 (Java EE 7), 344 (Java Server Faces 2.2), 346 (CDI 1.1), and participation on the Executive Committee. You can read an interview with Werner Keil conducted by another JCP Award nominee Marcus Eisele in Heroes of Java.
London Java Community and SouJava - from Martijn Verburg
"We're happy to be nominated on behalf of all of the people who have worked incredibly hard to bring the JCP, JSRs and developers closer together." says Martijn Verberg. "It certainly wasn't just us, the JCP EC and various JSR spec leads and EGs all contributed significantly." He adds that they're not finished yet, there's more that can be done.
He says they learned how much of a positive difference in standards that developers and other technical folk in the Java community can make. It starts by improving standards technically and includes helping make them accessible to a wider audience. "We think that our workshops and talks have helped break down many of the cultural and legal barriers between the JCP, JSRs, and those who actually use them,"says Martijn.
Visit the London Java Community website and their Adopt a JSR Category Archive.
Antoine Sabot-Durand
Antoine appears on this list because of his excellent response to the rejected EC ballot for JSR 357, and then building an Open Source success story as the JCP EC requested, in record time after the decision.
JSR 357 is not a JSR, since it was rejected by the EC, but actually, its current draft form is similar to an Early Draft Release or even a Public Draft. Very few "real" JSRs accomplish this much in such a short time.
Antoine has also made an Agorava Project candidate for JBoss Enterprise Framework (the successor to the Seam family of Open Source projects and CDI use cases for Java EE7).
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Michael Ernst, JSR 308, Annotations on Java Types
"JSR 308 (Type Annotations) has the ambitious goal of changing the Java language," says Michael. It provides a platform for developers to express and verify correctness and security properties that currently remain implicit, or are documented and checked in error-prone and ad-hoc ways. He says, "As with any language change, it must integrate smoothly with existing features and tools. These goals required meticulous and sustained effort."
Michael gives us some principles that have guided that work:
- Don't give up, despite any adversity. If you believe in the goal, it's worth it.
- Get help from others who will help you do great work.
- Run your project transparently, in the open, and offer explanations and principles that explain the reasoning. This is the best way to get lots of valuable feedback.
- Balance innovation and risk.
- Work fast to meet product deadlines, but don't succumb to pressure to cut corners.
JSR 308's mailing lists, FAQs and resources are available at http://types.cs.washington.edu/jsr308/.
Victor Grazi, Credit Suisse, JSR 354, Money and Currency API
"I am honored to be recognized," says Victor. When asked, he readily recognizes some of the difficulties in leading a spec. "By definition, your Expert Groups consist of very experienced people who might be subtly influenced by their own subtle use case," he warns. "It is important to be able to grasp their requirements and decide whether or not it belongs in your spec." On the other hand, "there are no bad suggestions, trust your group." Victor did see a frustration when someone sends an email with what seems like a great idea, but nobody responds. "There really needs to be interaction to keep it motivating."
For transparency, "Java.net has been excellent," claims Victor. "They provide a wiki, mailing list, and even source control."
Nigel Deakin, Oracle, JSR 343, Java Message Service 2.0
As a first-time spec lead Nigel is "very pleased by this endorsement of how I have been leading the JSR so far. Java Message Service (JMS) 2.0 is a key Java technology and leading the development of its next version is a great responsibility and a great honour."
What's his method? The basic mechanics of the JSR have been completely public and open: all discussions on the expert group mailing list are automatically forwarded to a public user mailing list to which anyone can subscribe or contribute. "I've tried hard to avoid private discussions as much as possible," says Nigel. "I've also tried to be as open as possible about my own thought processes and activities." They also have a completely public source code repository where anyone can view the latest draft of the spec and of the API documentation. Nigel keeps the wiki updated with the latest information on the JSR. "So whilst we do have a formal distinction between expert group members and other interested people, in practice it makes no difference to the information you receive and to your opportunity to contribute," he says. "In fact I'd say that it's not actually necessary to join the expert group to play a full part in the development of JMS 2.0."
Pete Muir, Red Hat, JSR 346, Contexts and Dependency Injection for JavaB EE 1.1
"It's great to be nominated," says Pete. 'It shows that the community really values specifications that are run as part of the community!" He believes that transparency and inclusivity are vital to make specifications relevant. By placing all members of the community on an equal footing, and not creating an artificial distinction of an "expert," he strives to really make the most of the community, and use the varying expertise of all members.
Pete explains that they run the specification like an open source project:
- Run everything through an issue tracker
- No private meetings or email lists
- Keep the community in the loop - lots of short emails to let them know the status of issues
If you have questions, just email him at cdi-dev@lists.jboss.org.
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API for JSON Processing, JSR 353 - Jitendra Kotamraju
Jitendra is pleasantly surprised by this JSR's nomination and foresees JSON's growing presence in the web and increased usage across all Java platforms. "This JSR will be used in many areas, including writing JSON web services, and will also be used by many infrastructure JSON technologies like binding Java objects to JSON," he says. Still, the standardization process is not easy and involves working with many others who have different views, often conflicting. "It's important to absorb all this feedback and incorporate in the API so that it is beneficial to the Java user community."
They have to guide a careful balance: keeping the API simple and easy to use, yet powerful enough for infrastructure developers. "To achieve this goal, we want to be transparent to all the users," says Jitendra. For transparency, the EG uses JIRA issue tracker and mailing lists to discuss proposals and issues, visible to all the users. As a result, he says "more discussions and suggestions from the user community are incorporated into the API."
Money and Currency API, JSR 354 - Victor Grazi
Money and currency are vital concepts in many, many financial and commercial applications. Each application is left to support this on its own, and it is not easy. "For example," explains Victor, "in reporting applications, it might be fine to round things off to two decimal places. But in accounting applications, things need to reconcile to the penny. So we find each application having to hack together an implementation to account for every penny."
As another example, he cites currencies: "Let's say we want to model the case where Greece leaves the Euro. There is no ISO 4217 currency code for Greek Drachma. How do you model that using the current java.util.Currency class, which only supports ISO 4217 codes? India still uses Lakhs and Crores for describing large values." Thanks to JSR 354, most financial applications and developers may soon get relief from these problems.
Java State Management, JSR 350 - Mitch Upton
"Being nominated for this award was very flattering," says Mitch. "I'm an engineer, and I love the work I do, but it's also nice to hear people think what you are working on is significant."
This JSR introduces some key concepts that will be valuable when working with clouds. It allows a PaaS environment to offer persistence services (needed by just about every application), and it allows a cloud environment to function as a marketplace where applications can ask the market for a provider that offers needed capabilities. Thus, an application does't need to be tightly bound to resources in a cloud, and the cloud deployment becomes more fluid.
Mitch advises Spec Leads to not be afraid to include everyone in the development effort of a JSR. "I want JSR 350 to have the best thoughts of all EG members represented in it," he says. "For transparency, we've made early and strong use of the java.net Wiki to post meeting minutes and design discussions." In addition, they plan to host the API code on github, making it easier for the community to gain access to it and comment on the API as it develops. "I also plan to make the spec document available to the community as it develops."
Java Message Service 2, JSR 343 - Nigel Deakin
JMS is one of the longest-established and most successful JCP specifications, both as part of Java EE and independently. It has a wide variety of actively-developed competing implementations, both open source and fully-commercial. The fact that this is the first update for over a decade is a reflection of the quality and appropriateness of the original standard. But it also bears the burden of a decade of new thinking and new technologies. "The biggest challenge of this JSR is to update JMS to reflect a decade of innovation in messaging and in application development in a way which offers genuine benefit and isn't simply change for change's sake," says Nigel.
"From a technical point of view, the guiding principle I have followed is that the goal of JMS is to provide a standard API for messaging applications whilst also supporting an ecosystem of competing implementations." He adds that it's not a goal to make all JMS implementations the same. "This means knowing when it is appropriate not to standardise something but better to leave different implementations to differ."
JCP.Next, JSR 348, JSR 355, and JSR 358 - Patrick Curran
These JSRs are setting the stage to modernize the JCP and make a path for the future of Java. They stand together as a body of work and are recognized for their cumulative positive significance and enormous potential. Patrick Curran, Spec Lead for all three explains, "This is actually a series of three JSRs which collectively will implement the first really significant changes to the way the JCP operates in about 10 years. Together they will ensure that the work of the JCP is carried out in an open, transparent, and agile manner, and that all who wish to participate are able to do so."
Patrick has learned that it takes a long time to implement major changes, "particularly when legal agreements are involved!" His three guiding principles are, "Openness, transparency, participation." In the case of transparency, he does everything out in the open using public mailing lists and issue trackers, as required by the first of these JSRs - JSR 348. How does he feel being nominated for three JSRs? "Very pleased, of course, but the credit really should go to all of those who have participated in the work of the JCP while pushing for changes in the way it operates." Participation works wonders.
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