Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Apache Resigns from JCP Executive Committee

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has resigned from the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee. 

Oracle needs to stop burning bridges unless of course it wants to see it ownership in Java become worth less and less as fork will be the likely outcome.   A fork might be the best thing that could happen to Java at this point.

You should read the entire post above at Apache, but the net/net from the above post is below:

"The Apache Software Foundation concludes that that JCP is not an open specification process - that Java specifications are proprietary technology that must be licensed directly from the spec lead under whatever terms the spec lead chooses; that the commercial concerns of a single entity, Oracle, will continue to seriously interfere with and bias the transparent governance of the ecosystem;  that it is impossible to distribute independent implementations of JSRs under open source licenses such that users are protected from IP litigation by expert group members or the spec lead; and finally, the EC is unwilling or unable to assert the basic power of their role in the JCP governance process.

In short, the EC and the Java Community Process are neither.

To that end, our representative has informed the JCP's Program Management Office of our resignation, effective immediately.  As such, the ASF is removing all official representatives from any and all JSRs. In addition, we will refuse any renewal of our JCP membership and, of course, our EC position."

The truth here is that Sun Microsystems should have done this years ago when ASF sent the open letter to Jonathan Schwartz....