Patrick Curran

In last month's article I wrote about Open Source and Open Standards. This month, having just returned from the QCon conference (http://jaoo.dk/london-2008/conference/) in London, during which I discussed the role of community in the JCP, and particularly the role that individual ("non-corporate") developers could play in the organization, I'd like to address some other aspect of openness: transparency of process and community involvement. Over the past few months I've met with a broad cross-section of the Java developer community - individual developers, members of the open source community, Java User Groups (http://java.sun.com/community/usergroups/), and Java Champions (https://java-champions.dev.java.net/). While some of these developers belong to the JCP, many do not. This isn't necessarily a sign of failure. If we had 12,000 members rather than the 1,200 that... (more)

New Beginnings: It's Time for the Yearly ‘State of the JCP’ Review

Oracle Session at Cloud Expo By now I'm sure you're aware that Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems is complete, and that Oracle is therefore the new steward of Java and the sponsor of the Java Community Process. It's too soon to say what changes this may bring, but for an overview of Oracle's Java strategy see the Software Strategy webcast from Thomas Kurian, Oracle's Executive Vice President of Product Development. (The Java portion of his presentation starts at the 3-minute mark and lasts for about 10 minutes.) Register Today and Save $550 ! Explore Sponsorship Opportuniti... (more)

JSR Watch: Java Mobile and Embedded Spotlight

As I recently spoke at the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference at Sun's Santa Clara campus, and the yearly Mobile World Congress conference is held in Barcelona in February, and the majority of the JSRs that have been active in the past few weeks are in the mobile space, I thought it would be opportune to focus on Java ME in this month's column. First, the Developer Days conference. (Quick summary of my presentation: standards are really important and you ignore them at your peril.) It was lively and informative - the first such conference organized by Sun's Mobile ... (more)

Open Source and Open Standards

As I write this article the 2008 FOSDEM (www.fosdem.org/2008/) (Free and Open Source software Developers European Meeting) is about to start. Of course, by the time you read this the meeting will be long over (that's the name of the game with publishing deadlines). I will not be attending, but several members of Sun's OpenJDK (http://openjdk.java.net/) team are gathering in Brussels to meet with the movers and shakers of the free and open source software world. This suggested the topic for this month's column, in which I will explore the relationship between open source and open ... (more)

Java, Standards, and Free Software in Europe

In the May issue of JDJ, I wrote about Java and free software in Brazil. This month, after some recent visits to Europe (to Antwerp for JavaPolis late last year, to London for the QCon conference in March, and to Paris for a JCP Executive Committee meeting in May), it seems logical to follow up with an article about Java in Europe. Government, Open Source, and Open Standards Government intervention and direction has long been critical to the development of the computer industry. The Internet, after all, was derived from the ARPANET, developed in the early 1970s from a U.S. gover... (more)