Re: [gentoo-java] Want to affect how JSRs are developed?

["robert burrell donkin" <robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com>]

On 4/24/07, William L. Thomson Jr. <wltjr@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-04-22 at 21:30 +0100, robert burrell donkin wrote:
> > On 4/22/07, William L. Thomson Jr. <wltjr@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > From what I have seen and heard that relationship ended some time ago. I
> > > do not believe any Sun peeps are committing to apache/jakarta projects.
> >
> > jakarta has been split into top level projects
>
> Not sure about that statement. Jakarta projects like tomcat have been
> moved to top level apache projects now. Jakarta is like an incubator for
> applications before they become top level/apache projects.

this happens in the incubator project now

> > there is plenty of activity elsewhere at apache involving committers
> > with links to sun. see for example
> > http://incubator.apache.org/projects/river.html,
> > http://db.apache.org/jdo/, http://shale.apache.org/ (i could do on but
> > won't). however, i'm not sure how many of those work on apache code as
> > part of their job.
>
> That was my point. To the best of my understanding very few if any Sun
> employees contribute to Apache/Jakarta projects.

i know of a reasonable number but i'm not sure how many of these are
employed by sun to work on these projects full time. apache is a good
forum to develop applications which balance contributions between
different corporations. sun still contributes to a number of these and
has a long history of supporting apachecons, donating hardware and so
on.

> Sun employees
> contributing to the FOSS java world are doing so via java.net or what
> ever that's called.

AIUI that's the primary mechanism by which sun develops the community
open source it leads. it's somewhere between apache and eclipse in
social organization but is run by sun.

> Pretty sure it's not part of the JCP but might be.

AIUI the JCP is a an organisation founded by sun but run at arm's
length. decisions are taken by two committees representing the
membership. there are elections but the structure favours incumbents
and major industrial players. apache is one of the incumbent major
players. sun has a special position in that it is a permanent member
and has a veto.

membership is free to individuals. corporations pay.

the JCP did not start out as a particularly open organisation but has
come a long way after significant pressure by apache and others. the
JCP is in the middle of a process to re-examine the way that new
specifications are developed.

apache's position is well known to all the players. however, opinions
from other FOSS folks haven't really been heard. if people can stand
the NDAs, they could sign up as members and work inside the system or
just make a noise (sun is really focussed on GNU/linux ATM).

> > J2EE1.4 (2.4) RI contains tomcat but i don't think there's a separate
> > RI for the servlet container specification
>
> Ok, then Tomcat is the reference up to Servlet API 2.4/JSP API 2.0.
> Still pretty sure that is not the case for Tomcat 6.x Servlet API
> 2.5/JSP API 2.1.

the RI for 2.5 is glassfish

> > > Seems there were some differences there amongst developers, and it has
> > > been pretty much completely severed.
> >
> > most of the 3.x/4.x tomcat developers have moved onto new open source
> > projects. i don't know of any who are working on servlet containers
> > anymore outside apache.
>
> Like other containers? Resin, Jetty, etc?

nope - new topics or new languages :-)

> > > I also noticed in glassfish some
> > > sun-commons stuff, so not sure if they are duplicating that as well.
> >
> > most likely that's just part of their effort to open sourcing most of
> > their code base
>
> No it seems to me to be a result of the fork. Now there will be apache
> commons stuff and sun commons stuff.

not sure i'd really describe it as a fork but i'll not push this point

> > the fork really happened back with the tomcat 3.0 donation. the apache
> > implementation has been independent since then.
>
> No there has been another much more recent fork. Although I am not sure
> how much is out in public space. Seems there is a current dispute over
> licenses and etc wrt to Harmony
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130574/article.html

the harmony's story is quite different. sun won't offer apache open
source compatible terms. apache is a charity and can only ship open
source. sun should have know this.

> Just to show recent and current rifts. How deep this goes, hard to say,
> but seems.
>
> Seems this stuff started long ago though
> http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/10_998071

this is the original apache-sun agreement over the JCP. it took apache
a long time to convince sun that they needed open source.
http://java.sys-con.com/read/286924.htm is good from the JCP
perspective.

though it's sometimes a long hard road, sun does listen. now
(http://java.sys-con.com/read/299987.htm) is a good opportunity for
the wider FOSS community to influence the development of the JCP.

- robert
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