Monday 3 September 2012

Still no Transparancy

Update 2012-09-06: The Expert Group mailing lists for Project Lambda are now open!


Back in October last year, I wrote about the lack of access to the expert group mailing list of Project lambda, the effort adding closures to JDK 8. Has anything changed? Well of course not.

Still no Transparancy

The blog last year was in response to the submission (in November 2010) of the original JSR which made certain promises (as required by the JCP). Chief of these was:

A publicly readable mailing list for expert group communication will be the primary working model.

After years of asking, there still is no publicly readable mailing list for the expert group.

(Everything in the previous blog still stands, so read that for more info.)

We are of course forunate enough to have the more general fully open lambda mailing list at OpenJDK. But it isn't what the JCP requires, Oracle promised or the community deserves.

While I'm sure individuals have tried their best, it seems clear that the system is broken. If a mailing list cannot be opened up in nearly 2 years then frankly what is the point?

And that is why I continue to see the JCP as an irrelevent zombie in its current form. It needs to be split in two such that Oracle's total ownership of Java SE is clear for all to see.

After all, I can live with Oracle's control. Its the broken promises I object to.