For the record, I just cast my JCP election votes.
I choose to publish my choices in the hope that the information may be of value to others. If you are a JCP voter, please consider your choices carefully!
I am voting to ratify Apache and Red Hat.
This is because both make good, positive contributions to the Java community and are worthy of a place on the EC.
I am voting against ratification of Hologic.
This is because there are many companies and organisations far more representative of the Java community than Hologic, and because they are too close to Oracle for my taste.
For the elected seats I am choosing Google and Bob Lee.
This is a hard choice, because Azul and Eclipse are also solid contributors to the community. However, for the JCP not to contain Google (and Josh Bloch) would be pretty crazy, and I strongly believe that an individual is required to replace Doug Lea (in order to balance the corporate interests).
I do note that Google, Azul or Eclipse would all have been valid choices for the ratified seat. I hope that if Hologic is rejected, that one of these three is chosen in their place. (This is no disrespect to Liferay, simply that these three are bigger contributers in my view.)
For Java ME, I know relatively little of the candidates. I have chosen to ratify the 3 nominated seats, and have chosen the 2 others based on their statements and existing contributions - Stefano Andreani and Aplix.
There are at least 1500 voters (pdf, page 3), of whom 77% are individuals. It will be interesting to see what the turnout is - last time just 245 of 1142 voters actually voted, so every vote really does count! For the record, only those that were JCP members on October 14th can vote - so you can't join now and then vote!
Finally, I believe that no vote choice here will affect the upcoming Java SE 7 vote, as I now count Oracle as having enough votes by far. This is sad, as it means Sun and Oracle have broken legal agreements and got away with it. The reaction of Apache to the situation remains to be seen.
Summary
These are my votes, but I encourage every registered voter to inform themselves and then vote.
Stephen Colebourne
Apache Software Foundation member, speaking personally
Oracle Java Champion, speaking personally
Not a committer on Harmony or OpenJDK
Thank you Stephen for the vote in the ME space. Since you stated that you have little view into that space I thought I would add a bit about Aplix and ME here to help.
ReplyDeleteJME is under heavy fire from competing platforms in the mobile and embedded space. Without a solid plan of action and strong commitment from the stewards of JME and the community, JME's future is shaky. During the last two years Sun took their eye off the ball in the ME space while they pushed JavaFX. That lack of attention from the stewards of Java was one of the top reasons for the drop off of mindshare and opened the door for other platforms to capture it. I am saying this to make sure my next point is framed well. The JME EC needs committed companies that are investing strongly in the ME space and that are working toward a healthy JME market. This is a MUST have. Aplix is one such company. We are the spec leads for MIDP 2 and 3 as well as JSR 135 (MMAPI) and JSR 82 (Bluetooth). We are providing the RIs and TCKs for all of the above and we are committed to the evolution of the platform. In a recent meeting one of the JCP EC members stated something that is worth repeating. It was something like this - If Java ME loses in the mobile phone space you can be assured that Java ME and SE will lose across the internet of things (embedded and CE).
John Rizzo