Bruce Chapman's Blog

Continuations JSR dead

So JSR 323 has failed the review ballot, which means it's out before first base. It never quite looked viable.

What is interesting is the voting comments from the JCP Executive Committee. It seems that the later voters are referring to voting comments made by earlier voters. Which means that the later voters can see the voting comments (and presumably the votes) made by the earlier voters BEFORE THEY VOTE. Is that a fair way to conduct a ballot?

As usual the boring part is IBM's comment (less the first paragraph)

"IBM's vote is based on the technical merits of this JSR and is not a vote on the licensing terms. IBM supports licensing models that create an open and level playing field by allowing third parties to create independent implementations of Java Specifications and that do not allow individuals or companies to exercise unnecessary control for proprietary advantage. We support open source as a licensing model for contributions in the JCP, and would hope others will support this direction. This comment is not necessarily directed at the current business or license terms for this JSR, however, it is a statement of IBM's preferred licensing model."

They make this same comment on every ballot. Sometimes it is slightly relevant. In this case at least it is completely irrelevant. So IBM, if the intended audience of your message hasn't got it yet, I doubt they ever will, for the rest of us (and I presume the message is not targeted at me), you're starting to sound pathetic.

When I voted Hani onto the JCP I did so because I wanted someone who'd call a spade a spade. I look forward to the day when Hani's votes are postfixed with something like

This vote is based on the technical merits of the proposal and not on whether or not IBM makes statements about licensing terms in their vote comments which admit to not necessarily being directed at the particular JSR being voted on.

Maybe if a few other EC members started playing the same silly game as IBM, then the childishness of it might become apparent to them.

And one last observation, Oracle gets two votes, one as Oracle, and one as BEA, although they only exercised one of those votes this time.

Comments

• Jetpen, Thanks for the heads up.

  Patrick, They didn't mention continuations, but it would have provided a mechanism which seemed like it would have done continuations.
  

  Posted by: brucechapman on January 30, 2008 at 01:32 AM

• Although the management teams of Oracle and BEA have reached an agreement, the two companies are not legally permitted to operate as a single company until other steps are completed, such as shareholder approval and regulatory approval. Until such time, both companies are required to operate completely independently. The employees are not allowed to communicate or collaborate with each other in any manner that makes joint decisions, joint marketing, or joint sales. This would include activities like the JCP. Oracle and BEA are in fact two separate companies until legal entity merge, which is probably months away.
  

  Posted by: jetpen on January 27, 2008 at 08:36 AM

• I thought the "Continuations" JSR, which is based on the work done in RIFE, Jetty, etc. (see http://rifers.org/wiki/display/RIFECNT/JSR+Continuations+Provider+API) had not yet been approved at all.

  Posted by: pdoubleya on January 26, 2008 at 01:35 AM

• I don't like the double-vote potential. Shouldn't JCP legally mandate that parent companies only get to vote once?

  Posted by: cowwoc on January 25, 2008 at 09:41 AM

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