This month I have a new format for my JDJ column. Due to the recent organizational changes, a second effort now reports to me: the Jini technology. And so, starting with this issue, you'll be able to catch up on the efforts of two communities: the JCP and the Jini community at large.

A Handful of Proposed Final Drafts
Several JSRs have reached the Proposed Final Draft stage, which is the last step in a JSR's life before attempting to become final through the Final Approval Ballot. A JSR's Proposed Final Draft will be, as the name suggests, a draft spec that the Spec Lead expects to be very close to the final document. It provides developers with a chance to catch and query any remaining ambiguities. JSR 200 (Network Transfer Format for Java Archives) posted a second Proposed Final Draft. This API, in the javax.pack name space, defines a dense archival format that delivers substantial savings compared to JAR files. The SAMS Messaging JSR led by Nokia (JSR 212) is also close to finalizing. The JSR defines an API for servers providing SMS (Short Message Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) functionality. This API will work on top of J2SE and J2EE implementations. JSR 133, led by Sun, revises the Java Memory Model and Thread Specification. The JSR focuses on volatile variables, final variables, immutable objects, class initialization, asynchronous exceptions, and thread interrupts. This JSR is part of the upcoming J2SE platform version 1.5.

A New JSR for Device Management
There is one new JSR that I'd like to draw your attention to this month - Siemens has proposed JSR 246, Device Management API. This optional package for CLDC- and CDC-based platforms allows the developer to manage a device through the device's natively implemented device management protocols; this management can be performed remotely. The JSR will focus on several existing protocols such as SyncML/OMA DM and the WAP OTAP protocol and aims to integrate with management frameworks such as OSGi's MEG specification. The Spec Lead hopes to complete the JSR in about 12 months.

Jini Technology, An Introduction
The Jini technology is an architecture for things that connect to a network. Those things can be devices (card readers, printers) or software application components. It takes a strong look at Deutsch's network fallacies (e.g., "the network is secure," "there is one administrator," "the network is reliable," etc.), makes the developer think about them, and helps you create services and clients that participate successfully in distributed, federated systems. You can read more about the Jini technology, and its use and adoption at http://Jini.org.

Jini Technology @ the JavaOne 2004 Conference
The Jini technology and the community are on display and in action several times during the week in San Francisco. First, on Tuesday evening the Jini community is one of the hosts of the "Java Communities in Action" event in the Argent Hotel. There are four technical sessions and three Birds of a Feather sessions. On Tuesday, Brian Murphy of Sun will be giving a practical guide to the Jini network technology version 2 (TS-1075). On Thursday, Leon Chism and Steven Hoffman of Orbitz will be presenting on this technology for use in a service oriented architecture as a low-cost alternative to the Enterprise JavaBeans technology (TS-2614). On Monday afternoon Ronald Simmons (Invesco) will be talking about Wall Street's use of grid computing and the Jini technology for large-scale deployment of computational resources (TS-2387). In the fourth technical session on Wednesday, Kevin MacDonald and Larry Mitchell (Sun) will discuss the use of the Jini architecture in combination with RFID and Auto-ID technology (TS-1313). There are two Jini-related BOFs scheduled for Monday evening: Brian Murphy and Keith Thompson will host a general conversation on the latest release of the Jini technology (BOF-1076), followed by Peter Jones' and Nigel Daley's (Sun) Q&A session on Jini Extensible Remote Invocation and Java Remote Invocation Method (BOF-1134). Then on Tuesday evening Cameron Roe (PsiNaptic) and Vladimir Rasin (Ford) will be discussing the integration of in-vehicle components (BOF-3807).

That's it for this month. I'm very interested in your feedback. Please e-mail me with your comments, questions, and suggestions.