Rod Johnson on a mission to open up JCP

By Alex Handy

October 23, 2008 — (Page 1 of 2)
The Java Community Process has long been marked by e-mail lists and password-blocked websites that cater to those working on new JSRs.

But if the JCP's newest executive committee member, Spring creator Rod Johnson, has his way, all of those secretive ways of building standards will be left in the past.

Johnson, whose election to the committee was announced on Tuesday, said that he will bring a healthy dose of paranoia and openness to the body that guides the future of Java.

Patrick Curran, chair of the JCP, has long said that he favors a more open process. He said that the recently completed JSR 311 for JAX-RS was an example of a more open process, and future JSRs may follow this example. But Johnson favors even more drastic acts of openness.

“I know that there's been some discussion in the JCP of moving towards the forum model rather than the mailing lists. I think that would be a positive thing,” said Johnson. “I think forum technology makes it really easy to search, and it does contribute to openness. I would like to see the use of wikis increase. Currently there is a substantial ability for a specification lead to run in the open or completely closed fashion. I think what I'd like to do is try to strive for the default position being as open as possible.”

Johnson also said that he hopes to put a bit of fright into the Java governing body. Some of that fear, he said, should be focused on the remnants of Java's past. “Certainly there's a number of things in the class library that I think should be removed, and I think that's very important in keeping the language fresh," said Johnson. "I think it's very important to bring a healthy degree of paranoia to the discussions. We can't be complacent; we can't let everything grow over time."

That's because there are oodles of other languages out there, he added. If Java doesn't prune the wonky bits, it could get left behind by leaner, meaner languages such as Python and Ruby.

Related Search Term(s): Java, JCP, OSGi

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