This is why observers are saying that Sun's new Java.net open source portal, which the company will unveil at JavaOne this Tuesday, may prove to be a strategically important move as Sun seeks to remain a vital force in the development of Java standards. O'Reilly, whose company is co-developing the network of Web sites in partnership with Sun and collaborative tools maker CollabNet, said that in Java.net, Sun is creating "a space that they don't completely control," in the hope of encouraging other vendors to become more involved.
As the focus shifts to Java.net, however, the JCP may become less important, O'Reilly said. "The community is to some extent routing around the JCP, and this site will to some extent accelerate the process," he explained.
When Java.net goes live on Tuesday, it will host open source implementations of a number of Java APIs (application programming interfaces) , including the JAX-RPC (Java API for XML-Based Remote Procedure Calls), the NetBeans Java integrated development environment project, and parts of the Swing graphical user interface libraries.
Sun clearly hopes that Java.net will be more than a clearing-house for Sun's own open source projects. "I think we're going to see a large growth area for the individual developer contributing new ideas and new code to what sits on top of the base platform," said Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, Sun's senior director of Java and strategic marketing.
"A lot of players in the JCP are looking for ways to reinvigorate it," said Brian Behlendorf, CollabNet's chief technology officer, and a former president of the Apache Software Foundation. "So maybe Java.net is a way for Sun to explore whether the evolution of Java as a language can be a more, organic, open source, evolution," he added.
Sun admits that the JCP is not for everyone. Because of the amount of work JCP participation demands, it is sometimes difficult for individual developers like Jason Hunter to drive standards, said Sun's JCP program office director, Onno Kluyt. "By the nature of what the JCP does, a large number of developers will not be comfortable participating in the JCP," he said.
The most interesting role of Java.net may be as an open testing ground where a large number of developers can participate in the development of technologies that then get proposed as Java standards. The JAIN (Java Advanced Intelligent Network) telecom software community, for example, will be using Java.net in this fashion, said Kluyt.
Java.net may also serve as a kind of foundry for Java projects that are not quite ready for standardization, said Kluyt, but he added that in the long run, he does not expect Java.net to replace the JCP in any significant way, or to cause a decline in the number of proposals -- called Java Specification Requests -- proposed via the JCP. "I would really be surprised if, because of the launch of Java.net, you would see a noticeable change in that number," he said.
Kluyt disagreed with the idea that IBM's participation in the JCP had tapered off. "They have perhaps in the last year not submitted many new JSRs, but I think it's too early to say whether that's a trend," he said.
IBM declined to be interviewed for this article, but the company did release a statement, saying, "The more that Java technology is associated with a coordinated, strong, industry-wide effort rather than a single company, the faster we'll see Java technologies adopted."
While Sun seems intent on retaining control over the core Java specifications -- it has no plans to open source its J2EE implementation on Java.net, for example -- the Meta Group's Murphy said that Sun is doing the right thing in recognizing that much of the interesting work is happening outside of its sphere of influence. "A lot of the innovation is going to happen outside the loop of the JCP," he said. "In many ways, if you look at the evolution of where Java is going, more of it has been driven by Apache than anything else," he added.
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