Oracle announced on its blog that following the promising progress of Java EE 8, Oracle is now considering ways to make Java EE more open and accessible to the open source community. In other words, Oracle wants to give up the lead in Java EE, hoping that the open source community will have more power to promote Java EE.
Work on the Java EE 8 specification is nearing completion, and the reference implementation is expected to be delivered by the end of the summer. Oracle has worked hard to make Java EE the industry’s benchmark, and now it’s time to rethink how to make it “more agile and responsive to the technology needs of the industry.”
Oracle said in a blog post:
Oracle believes opening Up Java EE technology to the wider community will be the right decision because it will “enable more agile processes, more flexible licensing, and change regulatory regimes.” Oracle plans to select candidates from the developer community, license holders, and several open source foundations, and although Oracle has not made a final decision, the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation seem to be the more likely candidates. Oracle has previously contributed OpenOffice and NetBeans IDE to Apache and Hudson integration server to the Eclipse Foundation. While it’s hard to assume that Oracle has a preference for the two open source foundations, it can’t be ruled out.
Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation:
Red Hat, a member of the Eclipse MicroProfile community, also applauded Oracle’s move. Rich Sharples, senior product director at Red Hat, said:
However, just because Oracle wants to cede control of Java EE does not mean that Oracle will turn its back on Java EE. On the contrary, Oracle will continue to participate in the evolution of Java EE technology.
Another version of Java, SE, has long been open source through OpenJDK and is being developed by IBM and Red Hat, though Oracle is still leading the project. So while Oracle is taking the burden off Java EE, it still has the REINS on Java SE.
Thanks to Guo Lei for correcting this article.
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