The last few weeks were fruitful in term of progress for Java EE 8! Here is a short recap covering some of the main news.

JSON-B (JSR 367) successfully passed its Final Approval Ballot. So next to JSON-P 1.1 (JSR 374), JSF 2.3 (JSR 372), and JPA 2.2 (JSR 338), which recently passed the Maintenance Release ballot, JSON-B is another Java EE 8 related specification that is final!

In June, three additional specifications passed their Public Review Ballot and posted their Proposed Final Draft: Servlet 4.0 (JSR 369), JAX-RS 2.1 (JSR 370), and Bean Validation 2.0 (JSR 380). Those three specifications are now in the final phase, i.e. Proposed Final Draft, before getting finalized!

The Java EE Expert Group for the Security API (JSR 375) has also posted the Public Review and is currently closing its Public Review Ballot period. The experts are busy wrapping the specification to submit the Proposed Final Draft shortly.

And last but not least, Java EE 8 (JSR 366), the umbrella specification, also successfully passed in June the Public Review Ballot and is ready to move to Proposed Final Draft!

All in all, we can now say that Java EE 8 specifications are nearly complete. As a consequence, we are observing a steady ramping down on specification-related works and an increase of GlassFish 5-related activities. Last month, the GlassFish code base was restructured. The different Reference Implementations (Jersey, Yasson, Mojarra, etc.) are already integrated or are currently being integrated in GlassFish 5 (e.g. EclipseLink 2.7.0 for JPA 2.2). Meanwhile, Weld 3 has been recently re-integrated back in GlassFish 5. The Bean Validation 2 integration is now being tackled.

In summary, it is fair to say that Java EE 8 is progressing nicely!

PS: If you are using Docker, make sure to check this Docker update covering both GF 4.1.2 and GF 5.