Oracle Says It's 'Committed' to Java EE 8

Oracle has finally responded to my -- and I'm sure many others' -- requests for comment on the future of Java EE, on which the formation of the Java EE Guardians threw a spotlight a few months ago. A member of the Oracle PR team sent me an e-mail in which Mike Moeller, Oracle's vice president of marketing communications and global public relations, offered the following:

"Oracle is committed to Java and has a very well-defined proposal for the next version of the Java EE specification -- Java EE8 -- that will support developers as they seek to build new applications that are designed using micro-services on large-scale distributed computing and container-based environments on the cloud. Oracle is working closely with key partners in the Java community to finalize the proposal and will share the full details with the broader Java community at JavaOne in September."

The Guardians, a group of volunteers committed to supporting enterprise Java, has been making the case that Oracle has been "conspicuously neglecting" Java EE. I've been reaching out to Oracle for a reaction to that claim since the Guardians made its public debut in March, but it's been radio silence from the blue silos in Redwood Shores until now.

It would be easy to conclude that that silence was broken in response to a petition posted by the Guardians last month calling for Oracle "to cooperate with us as a responsible, community-focused steward to move Java EE forward." (More on the petition here).

According to Reza Rahman, a former Oracle enterprise Java evangelist and one of the founders of the Java EE Guardians, response to the petition has been strong and "is proving instrumental in getting Oracle to listen." More than 2,800 people have signed the petition so far, Rahman told me in an e-mail, and more are signing at an average rate of 20 to 25 per day.

"For a deeply technical issue, I think that's a very good response rate," he said. "Most technical surveys usually garner around 500-1,000 input points (and struggle even to get that). It is certainly enough to empower our allies within Oracle to renew the struggle to do the right thing for the community."

Although the Moeller quote is short on details, Oracle's response should be viewed as a positive development, Rahman said. "The community should treat the lack of detail as an opportunity to continue to constructively engage Oracle, while remaining vigilant," he said. "We all need to work together to continue to ensure the well-being of the Java and Java EE ecosystems. Hopefully the forward plans for Java EE will be developed collaboratively and with direct community input."

Rahman also reminded me that the Guardians has been attracting some high-profile support to its cause. The growing list of community movers and shakers that have joined the group now includes James Gosling (the father of Java) and Java User Groups from all over the world.

Posted by John K. Waters on July 8, 2016