The international Open Source community was all atwitter last week following the publication of a blog by David Delabassee, software evangelist at Oracle, that Java Enterprise Edition might be shifted to an Open Source foundation.
Java EE is already Open Source but there have been concerns that Oracle was not fully committed to its ongoing development. Even after Oracle restated its commitment to Java EE last year, the calls for Oracle to fully open it up continued. The delayed release of version eight - it was originally slated for release in the first half of 2017 - has not helped.
So when Delabassee wrote - "As we approach the delivery of Java EE 8 (now set down for the last quarter of this year) and the JavaOne 2017 conference (October 1 - 5 in San Francisco), we believe there is an opportunity to rethink how Java EE is developed in order to make it more agile and responsive to changing industry and technology demands" - Java watchers took note.
And then came the words that caused all the fluttering and twittering:
"...although Java EE is developed in open source with the participation of the Java EE community, often the process is not seen as being agile, flexible or open enough, particularly when compared to other open source communities. We'd like to do better."
According to Delabassee, moving Java EE technologies, including reference implementations and test compatibility kit, to an Open Source foundation may be the right next step, in order to "adopt more agile processes, implement more flexible licensing, and change the governance process".
It isn't yet clear which Open Source foundation might host Java EE - Delabassee simply said Oracle would be discussing how to do this with "the community, our licensees and several candidate foundations".
"We believe a more open process, that is not dependent on a single vendor as platform lead, will encourage greater participation and innovation, and will be in best interests of the community," he wrote.
John Clingan, senior principal product manager at Open Source software company Red Hat - which is closely involved in Java community MicroProfile - described all this as "a very positive move that will benefit the entire Enterprise Java community".
He added that RedHat was optimistic and applauded Oracle's decision to advance Java EE under an open and collaborative community.
Founder and researcher at Creative Intellect Consulting, Bola Rotibi, agreed and described the shift to an Open Source foundation as a "good and important move".
"Java is still highly popular, and I think the move signifies the depth, breadth and scope of the capability available and support needed from the community - even a company as big as Oracle can't do it on its own," she said.
Clingan said that Java EE had the opportunity to grow more quickly because, with a more permissive licence, end-user developers should be able to use Java EE-related technologies more quickly and new contributions, new implementations and distributions would be encouraged.
This view was echoed by Dale Vile, co-founder and CEO at analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, who said that taking a more hands-off approach should be welcomed by the community that had been pressuring Oracle to take this step for years.
Meanwhile, the many Oracle corporate customers who rely on Java, have been reassured that the company will continue to support current and future Java EE. Oracle would also continue to participate in the future evolution of Java EE technologies.
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