So, Apache leaves JCP. Surprise surprise. Their biggest contribution in the past few years has been to filibuster the Java 7 JSR, and is the primary reason why there is no final version of Java 7 (or 8) today. I’m all for non-contributing members leaving the JCP. Less noise, and more people, who actually care about the language and EE platform working on improving it.
Bill the Plumber
Software plumbing using middleware wrenches
My Last Book
Bill the Plumber 
Dec 10, 2010 @ 15:24:11
Just because someone works for an open source company and develops open source software doesn’t mean that person understands and defends the values and principles of open source.
Thank god that no copyright and patent lawsuits will be used to destroy competition and undermine the same values and principles of open source!
Apache Foundation really is an unimportant player that contributed nothing whatsoever to the world and have behaved as parasites for too long. It’s time for someone to show the world this behaviour!
Oracle on the other hand…
Dec 10, 2010 @ 15:39:03
Nope, the Apache Foundation has really contributed nothing but confusion in open source with their religious views on what an open source license should or should not be. I’ve had Apachetards tell me I don’t do “real” open source because a) I don’t distribute under ASL, or b) I’m a commercial company that doesn’t host my projects at Apache.org. This is the kind of mindset that ASF promotes. Zealotry… No thanks my friend…
Apache projects? Well, thats a different story. They actually do something constructive.
Personally, I’d much rather have a Java 7 than removing the field of use restriction that has really not affected our company at all. The real community, the developers who consume Java, would probably feel the same.
Dec 12, 2010 @ 12:32:44
> The real community, the developers who consume Java, would probably feel the same.
Short answer: NO.
Look around, you are probably quite alone with your hate speech.
I don’t know what will happen when Apache starts pulling its Software which implements JSRs (No one does actually use Tomcat, right?) and I would have been much more happy if Sun/Oracle just behaved to their contractual obligations instead of causing this massive brain drain.
Dec 10, 2010 @ 15:33:17
The thing is that Apache has contributed to java way more than all the rest of the JCP members combined together. Apache leaving JCP means that Java will not only stagnate, it will wither.
Dec 10, 2010 @ 15:44:53
Well, i think that you’ve just insulted a lot of non-Apache people, companies, and open source projects.
Also, do engineers that run and contribute to ant, maven, xerces, tomcat sit on the JCP Executive Committee? I think not. Its some ASF bureaucrat.
Dec 10, 2010 @ 18:03:57
the ASF doesn’t have bureaucrats and that decision was taken after discussion between the apache members. That includes Ant, Xerces, Maven and tomcat people.
Are we going to abandon Java? No, we just don’t think the JCP is the place to move it forward. We can still do Ant, the netbeans and eclipse teams will probably supply Java7-related patches and they’ll get checked in. The libraries in and out of the ASF will continue. Log4J is a better logging API than java.util.logging. Your code, Hibernate, does persistence better than EJB3.0 beans. OSGi is a nicer way of doing classpath management than anything before it. The JCP was meant to be a way to build a community, and there it’s failing. It’s key strength: the specs came with test kits, turned out to be a failure when Sun realised it was a way they could stop alternate JVM implementations shipping, and hence try and get a $ tax from every smartphone. Will it work? I’ll have to watch.
What next: open source development of the next set of libraries for the new problems. Hadoop will continue to be the emergent platform for datacentre scale computation in Java, we’ll work closer with the hibernate people. I’m going to see about better Ant test run reporting in Hudson, work directly with them, get the features in. Be agile.
Dec 13, 2010 @ 16:56:03
Steve, I want Sun/Oracle to stifle alternate VM implementations as long as their own VM is top notch and innovation is happening within OpenJDK. Reason? Well, if you’ve ever had to answer support request like “This doesn’t work on IBM JDK, but works on Sun JDK”, you’d understand…
Dec 13, 2010 @ 20:27:34
> Well, i think that you’ve just insulted a lot of non-Apache people, companies, and open source projects.
I probably have, but the truth always hurts.
Dec 10, 2010 @ 19:19:08
Right on, Bill; this whole thing is just so embarrassing I don’t even know where to begin. No one ever wins a game by taking their marbles and going home.
Dec 12, 2010 @ 12:35:52
> Right on, Bill; this whole thing is just so embarrassing I don’t even know where to begin.
Right, I was as embarrassed as you when I read that blog from a Red Hat employee.
It is really a shame.
After Oracle has seen that it can just ignore its contracts as it can see fit, I wonder which company will be next? I guess it won’t be IBM, they got a big fat check a few weeks ago. Maybe a smaller player like .. uhm … Red Hat maybe?
Dec 13, 2010 @ 17:04:44
A shame that I call attention to anything that paints Apache in a bad light?
Dec 10, 2010 @ 20:49:06
You just nailed it Bill,
Not to mention that Google is fighting its battle with Oracle via proxies (Apache) and by standing behind the open source community.
Google doesn’t give a **** about open source.
I really began to look at Oracle differently.
Dec 10, 2010 @ 20:59:52
-1
Dec 12, 2010 @ 12:23:44
It’s really interesting how Oracle talks past the problem of the ASF as it would not have noticed it. Liability and sincerity in your flavor, right? Just ignore the otherone if he has another opinion than you. It’s just as Tim Peierls said. The JCP became a group of yes-man.
Dec 13, 2010 @ 17:00:10
Right and wrong on the “yes-man”. The EC, except for the Java 7 vote, was a rubber-stamp body. Its funny how you talk about ignoring opinions, I just happen to have the opinion that Java, Java EE, and the politics involved aren’t as black and white, good vs. evil, as Apache makes it out to be.