Happy New Year! As we look ahead to plans for the Java Community Process (JCP) program in 2015, let's take a quick look back through 2014.
1) The JCP Celebrates 15 Years - we celebrated 15 years of the JCP program by holding an amazing party in June at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California in conjunction with the Silicon Valley Java User Group (SVJUG). We celebrated with fellow Java developers including Spec Leads, Expert Group members, Executive Committee (EC) members and some of the folks instrumental in the success of the JCP program over the past fifteen years. We recognized the collaborative work from companies, academics, individual developers and not-for-profits from all over the world who have come together to develop Java technology through the JCP program. Among the attendees were former JCP Chairs, Rob Gingell and Onno Kluyt, as well as Carla Schroer, Henrik Stahl, Bill Shannon, Alex Buckley, Joe Darcy, Vineet Gupta; and several EC Members, such as John Pampuch, Mike DeNicola and Paul Manfrini. We also did a virtual call with SouJava and Nighthacking with Stephen Chin, including a live interview with James Gosling and others, talking about the JCP being 'pretty wonderful'. You can also check out the JCP photostream of the party and other events. We continued the celebration at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco in September, which was spectacular with the addition of the NullPointers Java Community Band and ReepsOne beatboxing with Duke; we also announced the 12th annual JCP awards at the party.
In commemoration of this milestone, we developed a cool 15 Year JCP Infographic and icon to highlight the progress and success of the JCP program throughout its' lifecycle. These were included in kits for Java User Groups (JUGs) to celebrate the JCP in 2014 - they received a presentation, party favors, 15 Year Infographic posters and a raffle item for their local JUG 15 year JCP Celebration! Sixty five kits for JUGs around the world were shipped to six continents - Africa, Asia, Australia Europe, North America and South America (still missing Antarctica)!
2) Major Releases of Java SE and Java ME approved through the JCP - JSR 337, Java SE 8 Platform Release Contents,was approved. This was the largest upgrade to the Java programming model since the platform was introduced in 1996. The key features were JSR 335, Lambdas for the Java Programming Language, Nashorn, and JSR 310, a new Date & Time API. JSR 360, CLDC, 8 was approved. This was a major update to the existing Java ME platform incorporating a large set of updated and new features, including: Java language and API alignment with Java SE 8, support for modern web protocols, a comprehensive application model, advanced security features and standard APIs for power management and interaction with a broad set of standard peripherals. JSR 361, Java ME Embedded Profile, was also developed and approved through the JCP in 2014. This JSR provides a development platform for embedded devices and the Internet of Things (IoT).
3) Adopt-a-JSR Momentum - with the major releases of the Java platforms, and building on the participation in the development of the Java EE 7 platform release in 2013, the Adopt-a-JSR program continued to draw interest and enthusiasm from the early adopters in the Java developer community. Participants contributed significantly to the Java SE 8 Release, including JSR 335, Lambda Expressions for the Java Programming Language, and JSR 310, Date & Time API. We held several Adopt-a-JSR online meetings in 2014 - recordings and materials are published on the JCP.org Multimedia page. JUG leaders added languages translations to the wiki - expanding to nine languages - English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew. There are 30 JUGs currently participating. I had an opportunity to meet and discuss interest with many other JUGs in 2014, including Bucharest, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Macedonia, Madras and Paraguay JUGs in 2014, and hope to see them participate in 2015.
30 separate JUGs are already participating: Belgium JUG, Campinas JUG, Chicago JUG, CEJUG, Chennai JUG, Cologne JUG, Congo JUG, EGJUG, Faso JUG, Guadalajara JUG, GUJavaSC, Houston JUG, Hyderabad JUG, Indonesia JUG, Istanbul JUG, Japan JUG, Java Hellenic User Group, Joglo Semar JUG, Jozi JUG, LJC, Madrid JUG, MBale JUG, Morocco JUG, Peru JUG, PT.JUG, SouJava JUG, Silicon Valley JUG and Toronto JUG.
4) New JSRs filed for next editions of Java EE and Java SE - starting in September 2014, we had 11 new JSRs submitted for Java EE 8 (JSRs 365 - JSR 375). JSR 366, is the Java EE 8 Platform Specification JSR. The main focus of this release in on support for HTML5 and the emerging HTTP 2.0 standard, enhanced simplification and managed bean integration and improved infrastructure for applications running in the cloud. The new technologies for Java EE 8 include MVC, JSON-B and Security; revisions so far submitted are CDI, JSF, JAX-RS, Servlets, JMS, Management, and JSON-P. All 11 of the Java EE 8 JSRs submitted to date are currently approved for development by the JCP EC, and are beginning to start work in their Expert Groups. The published schedules expect the Early Drafts to be ready in the Spring of 2015 and the Final Releases in 2016. The Adopt-a-JSR for Java EE 8 page is a great resource for suggestions on getting involved if you are not part of the Expert Groups. In addition, the first Java SE 9 JSR was filed and approved by the JCP EC, JSR 376, Java Module Platform System; subsequent JSRs are planned to be filed for Java SE 9 in 2015.
5) JCP.Next Progress - we have evolved the JCP program over the years to meet the needs of the community, embracing participation, transparency and openness as we develop and deliver multiple editions of the Java Platform. This formal process was designed to be fast, flexible, and adaptable to a wide variety of working styles present in the community. We continued with the effort to evolve the JCP in 2014, through JCP.Next. The JCP Executive Committee serves as the Expert Group. We introduced a new JCP.Next JSR in 2014, JSR 364, aimed at broadening JCP Membership & Participation. This JSR completed an Early Draft Review in 2014, and will introduce new levels of membership to the JCP program and eliminate membership fees. We hope to finalize JSR 364 in 2015. In tandem, we will continue work on JSR 358, A Major Revision to the JCP, in 2015. This JSR will take longer to complete and passed a Renewal Ballot in 2014 to continue development in the JCP program.
To go along with the openness and transparency that are now the default mode of operation for JSRs, making them, in effect, open source projects, several JSRs participated in Hackergartens at conferences around the world, including Devoxx, JavaLand and JavaOne. This was a great way to involve the broader Java community in the development of JSRs and include real world developer feedback, and is an effort that will continue to be a focus in 2015.
We also are seeing an increase in membership as a result of some of the changes being discussed as part of JCP.Next, and we expect this to continue in 2015, as well. New corporate memberships in 2014 included: C2B2, Caelum, Canoo AG, Cloudera, Consol GmbH, Dextra, Gradleware, Hazelcast, ICEsoft Technologies, innoQ, Intalio, Irian Solutions GmbH, Jelastic, Kaazing Corporation, MicroDoc, MongoDB, oparco, Rakuten, Savoir Technologies, Summa Tech do Brasil, Terra Firma Engineering, TimeSys, Tomitribe, Webtide, Wombat Software, Vaadin, Vision Service Plan, and ZEEF. New JUGs members included: Alpes JUG, Berlin JUG, Bulgarian JUG, DFJUG, GUJava SC, KanJava, Manchester JUG, and Melbourne JUG. If you are interested in becoming a member, see the Membership page.
Next week I will be presenting the 2014 Year in Review for the JCP Executive Committee during our two day Face to Face in San Jose, California, hosted by EC Member, Freescale. I will publish those slides for review, if you are interested in more information on the JCP in 2014. 2015 will be an exciting time for the Java developer community and I am looking forward to it with great anticipation! Hope to seeing many of you in the coming year.