Today on the podcast, Wes talks with Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse Foundation was chosen to govern the evolution of Oracle’s Java EE to Jakarta EE. The two discuss the project, the recent news about issues with the javax namespace, the challenges around bundling a Java Runtime with Eclipse, and the path forward for Jakarta EE 9 and beyond.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Java EE, unlikely Java SE, has always been a multi-vendor ecosystem. It made sense for everyone for Oracle to invite their partners to be involved in the governance of the specification for Java EE for it to continue moving forward. This is the reason for moving Java EE into the Eclipse Foundation as Jakarta EE.

- The current plan is for the Eclipse Foundation to get a copyright license to evolve the text of the specification and not a license to the trademarks of Java EE itself.

- The javax namespace must remain as is. For it to be evolved, a different namespace must be used.

The javax namespace is a trademark of Oracle. Because of this, there are quality controls that Oracle required for its evolution. Ultimately because of those controls, the Eclipse Foundation felt it was better to branch javax into a different namespace and evolve it separately solely under Jakarta EE governance.

- Jakarta EE 8 is targeted to be released around Oracle Code ONE. Jakarta EE 8 will be exactly the same as Java EE 8. * The only difference is it will be licensed from Jakarta, not Oracle and only requires membership in the Working Group.

- Beyond EE 8, the release cycle, the plan for moving the javax namespace (and keeping compatibility with both the old javax namespace and the new namespace), and new specifications for inclusion into Jakarta EE are still active areas of discussion.

- Unrelated to the discussion of Jakarta EE (but discussed in the same board meeting), an attempt to bundle OpenJ9 with the Eclipse IDE failed because of licensing restrictions around a certified Java Runtime. OpenJ9 is certified when acquired through an IBM channel, but not when downloaded directly for us.

More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2HSfcfM

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq

Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq

Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8

Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ

Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq

Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2HSfcfM