News

JDK Community Establishes Participation Site

• By Kathleen Ohlson
• May 23, 2005

The Java Development Kit Community is seeking interested parties to help create its project page, which details projects that are being developed as part of the community and defines the available roles.

Projects that will require Java Research License will begin in the jrl-incubator under the jdk-research project. These projects require that java.net members agree to the JRL terms, and they will be available only to members who are either researchers or contributors. JRL projects can use researchers and contributors or use the observer and developer roles that are standard in java.net projects. Any projects that don’t require a JRL license will begin in the jdk-incubator and work their way into the main community once they are stabilized.

Researchers are developers who the use JDK’s technology to create tools and other applications that work on the application programming interfaces or other research projects under the JRL. They don’t contribute code, but they use the APIs and make suggestions. Researchers have access to look at all JDK community projects.

Contributors can submit fixes and enhancements to the JDK code in the jdk-collaboration project, as well as having the same abilities as researchers. Other jdk-research projects can implement contributors in their projects or use this role to determine if a user is eligible for the developer role.

Most of the JRL projects will require the contributor role for any contribution. Contributors are granted to java.net members that have signed and returned a Sun Contributor Agreement. Once the agreement is received, the contributor role is granted for all JDK projects.

The JDK Community is also looking for feedback from researchers and contributors for Mustang, the latest version for Sun Microsystems’ Java source code. J2SE 6.0 is due out in the first half of 2006.