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Dalibor Topic wrote: |
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> How about that? |
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I should explain why the tone I used was rather harsh & cynical (and |
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apologize for it). |
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The suggestion to join and make noise inside the JCP is not realistic |
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for a couple of reasons: |
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* the JCP has no venue in which such noise can be made |
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* the JCP has two executive committees (ECs), one for mobile Java, one |
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for the rest, which more or less serves as the playground for big |
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politics inside the JCP between organizations. |
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* The ECs get to decide, behind closed doors, what the next version of |
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the JCP will look like. |
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* i.e. unless you are on the EC of the JCP *right now*, you have no say |
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in the matter, no matter if you join the JCP tomorrow and sign off NDAs |
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or not. |
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* other than being able to vote off a small part of the EC members in |
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the yearly elections, |
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the membership has no way to formally influence the direction where the |
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JCP is going. |
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* so, other than joining in droves in order to kick out the EC |
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establishment, there is nothing that joining the JCP would achieve. |
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* and the success of that would be rather questionable ... one can't |
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force organisations like IBM, Apache, Sun, etc. to commit to 100% |
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transparency. They'll simply move somewhere else to make their deals. |
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* no one can force the spec leads to do the right things, even if the |
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whole EC was replaced instantly. |
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In practice, the current JCP system allows the spec leads to run a |
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perfectly transparent JSR, with an open source implementation, TCK and |
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specs without clickthoughs, like Doug Lea did for the concurrency JSR. |
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The problem is that only a handful of spec leads are able to make such |
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things happen. |
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Fortunately, there has been a recent strong trend among spec leads to |
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work towards transparency, though, and in general there has been a trend |
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towards open source RIs. I see the current results of the java.net poll |
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as a confirmation for those spec leads that they are moving in the right |
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direction, and I'm very happy to see them lead by example, and work on |
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turning the system around from the inside. |
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I don't think that the confrontational 'let's make noise inside the JCP' |
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approach would work for us who aren't on the EC, and that's pretty much |
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everyone. |
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What works, in my experience, is changing the environment from the |
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outside in which the JCP EC and its members operate, such that their |
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interests and the interests of the Java & GNU/Linux communites are more |
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closely aligned, and encouraging good behaviour. |
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It would help if more JCP members started leading by example, and made |
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sure that all the JSRs they participate in have open source RIs, open |
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source TCKs, etc. In that regard ASF could have a role to play inside |
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the JCP in assisting companies that have close ties to it via its |
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membership in the transition, and providing them with advice & guidance |
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on opening up their JSRs. |
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The ASF could also try to make 'noise' inside the system, but I fail to |
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see how that could lead to a useful outcome. I'd rather suggest that the |
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ASF gets going working on creating open source TCKs for all RIs |
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implemented under its spec leadership (the whole XML & WS-* stuff, |
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Tomcat, and all that). |
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cheers, |
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dalibor topic |
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-- |
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