So much has happened in the enterprise Java space over the past few months that it kind of boggles the mind. Fortunately, the rockstars, gurus and industry watchers have been busily sorting out the whats and wherefores of this epic transformation in the blogosphere. (You thought it was just me, right?) Seems like a good time to pass along a bit of that wisdom with some recommended reading.
Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, should definitely go first here, because his was the calm and experienced voice in the middle of the early dear-god-don't-call-it-EE4J storm. His writing on the Eclipse Foundation's "Life at Eclipse" blog provided the urgently needed clarity of facts as the process of moving Java EE from Oracle to his organization stirred a blinding cloud of rumors and fears. His blog was also often interactive, a place where the new regime reached out to the community for its opinions and concerns, at times literally surveying the people most directly affected by the changes. One of my fav posts: "On Complexity and Good Intentions." (Great title, too.)
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Posted by John K. Waters on May 30, 20180 comments
The Eclipse Foundation today unveiled its game plan for Jakarta EE, published the results of a community survey on the future of that technology platform, and explained the open source governance model it will use to manage its development going forward.
It almost goes without saying that taking over the responsibility for the development of enterprise Java is an enormous undertaking. But I didn't realize until I spoke with the Foundation's executive director, Mike Milinkovich, that his organization would also be taking over the responsibilities of the Java Community Process (JCP), guiding and approving the Jakarta EE technical specifications going forward.
I talked with Milinkovich about these changes last week.
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 24, 20180 comments
The annual RSA Conference gets under way next week in San Francisco, which means the Moscone Center will be packed with infosec mavens from "the frontlines of the cybersecurity landscape." (So cool.)
The speaker list includes Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Christopher D. Young, CEO at McAfee, and RSA President Rohit Ghai. And topping my list of presentations: "The Five Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques, and What's Coming Next."
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 11, 20180 comments
Now that Oracle has handed off the technology formerly known as Java Enterprise Edition to the Eclipse Foundation, and the resulting EE4J Project will be developing that technology rebranded as Jakarta EE, I can't help wondering what will become of the group of enterprise Java jocks that, arguably, made this transition happen.
It was two years ago last month that the Java EE Guardians formally announced themselves, though its founding members had been meeting quietly for months before that. The group led a very public push to get Oracle to attend to its duties as steward of enterprise Java. Its members assembled and published evidence to support their assertion that Java EE is critical technology that needed more attention from Oracle. They launched a Web site, published a letter to the execs at Redwood Shores, followed up with a petition demanding action, and just generally became a thorn in Big Red's side.
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 11, 20180 comments
The coming year is going to be an interesting one for Java pros. Java EE is now an Eclipse project. Oracle has accelerated the release cadence of Java SE. And modularization, via the Java Platform Module System, better known as Jigsaw, has finally arrived.
John Duimovich, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Java CTO, has been watching the evolving Java ecosystem for more than 20 years. He recently shared some of his expectations about the future of Java in this new environment.
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Posted by John K. Waters on February 14, 20180 comments
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Friday, Feb. 2, and the global non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness and adoption of open source software is gonna par-tay. By which I mean, the OSI has scheduled activities around the world this year to commemorate the event. (I'm hoping there will be snacks.)
Current plans include celebrations coordinated with the leading open source conferences, as well as stand-alone community-led events, the organization announced this week. As of this writing, those events include: All Things Open, Campus Party Brasil, FOSDEM, FOSSASIA Summit, Linux.conf.au, LinuxFest Northwest, Open Apereo, Open Camps, OSCON, Paris Open Source Summit and SCALE16x. In addition to official events, the OSI is also supporting volunteer organizers who want to host local, community-led celebrations in their own cities.
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Posted by John K. Waters on January 30, 20180 comments
Azul Systems unveiled a new support roadmap for users of Zulu Enterprise, the commercially supported edition of its flagship Java runtime. The roadmap lays out the company's plan to cope with what it calls "support cliffs" that will be created in the ramp up to Oracle's new faster release cadence for the Java SE Platform and OpenJDK.
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Posted by John K. Waters on January 30, 20180 comments
The predictions just keep coming! Honestly, I haven't seen this many tech-savvy industry watchers and execs ready to weigh in with their expectations for the coming year ... well ... ever. I think it speaks to the times we live in that so many of us seem to be focused on the future.
Among those execs is John Duimovich, Java CTO and Distinguished Engineer at IBM (and perennial attendee fav JavaOne keynoter and session leader). Duimovich has been working with Java for all of its 20 years, and he shared his predictions for the language and platform in the coming year via e-mail. Thought I'd pass them along.
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Posted by John K. Waters on January 16, 20180 comments
Oracle and Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Google were back in court last week, adding yet another chapter to the long running saga of their conflict over Google's use of Java in its Android operating system. Oracle is appealing a 2016 finding by a federal jury that Google's use of 37 Java APIs in its Android OS constituted fair use.
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Posted by John K. Waters on December 13, 20170 comments