Open Source is out of the Java process

Yogidabear writes: "According to the Apache group, Open Source has been officially locked out of the Java process with JSR 99 (Java Specification Participation Agreement). The article on the Jakarta site notes that IBM in particular voted against this JSR and many others noted that they were not happy with the stance Sun was taking against Open Source. What does this mean for the Open Source community as it relates to Java? And, better yet, what does this mean for Java?"

Comments

Re:More Info?

[inertia187]

Apache was unhappy with the specifications, and stated as much in their "jspa-position" which they give four issues, then sums it up with:

• Apache in its reading of the document had believed there had been some progress on these issues. However, Apache recently learned that in Sun's legal opinion none of these (save the first) has changed in status since the currently in-force JSPA.

So I guess Apache defines what is good for OS and what isn't.

Java is beyond hope

[mmusn]

Seven years ago, Sun promised to keep Java open and free. What do we have today? A bloated set of APIs implemented by only a single vendor and a process that takes years to add even the simplest improvements to the Java language and libraries. And Sun has failed to take any actions that would guarantee to Java users that Java remains freely available--Sun could start charging for it any day, and you couldn't even download binaries anymore.

I think Sun Java and the JCP is beyond hope. Open source developers should either define their own core "Java" implementation and libraries that discards most of the overly complex and Sun proprietary stuff, or just join up with the Mono project (Microsoft is no better than Sun, but Mono is producing a fully open source implementation of C#, and that's what counts).