Oracle Planning to Refresh the Java Community Process

Oracle have released a JSR that "proposes a variety of changes and adjustments to the Java Community Process". JSR 348: Towards a new version of the Java Community Process, also known as JCP.next JSR1 proposes changes in four key areas: Transparency, Participation, Agility and Governance. The following is a summary of these alterations: 

Transparency 

The Expert Group will be required to carry out their business on public mailing lists, and track issues and comments using public tracking media, with the expert group members responding to all comments publicly. The Executive Committee will need to formalised undocumented procedures and the private members guides will be incorporated into a public EC Standing Rules document.  The JSR will also look to make it easier to see the results of the TCK testing process.  

The Expert Group will explore ways to make the annual election process more transparent, by encouraging Executive Committee and JCP membership participation in the nomination process, and by ensuring that the voting membership has the greatest possible opportunity to "meet the candidates."

Participation 

This section deals with ensuring broad participation in the activities of Expert Groups and Executive Committees. Recruitment of EG members will b emade more public. Processes are to be put in place to replace Spec Leads or EG members who do not perform their duties responsibly, and penalties will be applied to those on the Executive Committee who do not attend meetings/vote on JSRs.

Agility 

One of the most welcome changes is to improve the speed at which JSRs move through the process, imposing timeouts for inactive and slow moving JSRs.

Governance

The aim here is to merge the two Executive Committees (ME and SE/EE) into one, recognising that Java is a single platform. 

This will all result in an updated version of the JCP Process document, and the final approval is currently scheduled for October 2011. Anything that would lead to a delay in this schedule will be deferred to a follow on JSR, which in turn is planned for completion in May 2012. 

JCP chair and spec lead for this JSR, Patrick Curran says 

In the past few months, Oracle and other partners in the Java Community Process have driven a revitalization of Java technology and standards with the approval of the JSRs for Java Platform, Standard Edition 7 and 8, as well as Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 7. Now with the submission of the first JSR for JCP.next, we are ready to begin the evolution of the Java Community Process itself, making it easier for both individuals and organizations to participate in the process.