Red Hat to Oracle - Open up the Java Community Process

Red Hat has asked Oracle to help keep Java as one of the "most important technologies developed during the past twenty years" by creating an open and independent Java Community Process. The call from Craig Muzilla, Red Hat vice president for middleware, comes in a posting on the company's web site. It points out that Red Hat have become much more involved in Java, with its acquisition and growth of it's JBoss middleware and has been leading specifications such as JSR299 (Contexts and Dependency Injection) and JSR303 (Bean Validation) through the Java Community Process.

"Now that Oracle has become a more significant guardian of Java, they have an opportunity to foster and expand the principles that made Java the successful platform it is today" says Muzilla. He notes that in recent years, many members of the JCP have thought that Sun was "beginning to stifle the potential of Java" for its own interests.

He calls for Oracle to create a "more open and inclusive governing body" and cites Oracle's own proposal to the JCP from 2007 which stated "It is the sense of the Executive Committee that the JCP become an open independent vendor-neutral Standards Organisation where all members participate on a level playing field". That proposal was passed with wide support, but since then, no progress has been made. Red Hat wants to see Oracle put that proposal into action now that they have the ability to do so.

Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, is due to present a marathon five hour webcast on Wednesday in which the company will outline its future strategy now that the acquisition of Sun Microsystems has been cleared by the European Commission.

(djwm)