In last month's article I wrote about Open Source and Open Standards. This month, having just returned from the QCon conference (http://jaoo.d k/london-2008/conference/ ) in London, during which I discussed the role of community in the JCP, and particularly the role that individual ('non-corporate') developers could play in the organization, I'd like to address some other aspect of openness: transparency of process and community involvement.

As I write this article the 2008 FOSDEM (www.fosdem.org/2008/) (Free and Open Source software Developers European Meeting) is about to start. Of course, by the time you read this the meeting will be long over (that's the name of the game with publishing deadlines). I will not be attending, but several members of Sun's OpenJDK (http://ope njdk.java.net/) team are gathering in Brussels to meet with the movers and shakers of the free and open source software world. This suggested the topic for this month's column, in which I will explore the relationship between open source and open standards

As I recently spoke at the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference at Sun's Santa Clara campus, and the yearly Mobile World Congress conference was held in Barcelona in February, and the majority of the JSRs that have been active in the past few weeks are in the mobile space, I thought it would be opportune to focus on Java ME in this month's column.

The turn of the year provides an opportunity to review the events of the past and to think about what lies ahead, so I'll address these themes in this month's column. But first I'd like to wish you all a peaceful and successful New Year. It's been a year of steady progress for the JCP. Our membership grew by more than 10% to a total of 1,427.

In October we announced the winners of the first round of this year's JCP elections, during which members voted for three Sun-nominated candidates on each Executive Committee (EC). To refresh your memory, the winners on the Java ME EC were Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, and Time Warner Cable. The Java SE/EE EC winners were the Apache Software Foundation, Red Hat Middleware, and Nortel.

The first round of this year's JCP elections is complete. In this round Sun nominates members for election to six ratified seats on the Executive Committees (ECs): three seats on the Java ME Executive Committee (EC) and three on the Java SE/EE EC. A second round of elections takes place in November, during which members vote on candidates who nominate themselves for elected seats on the ECs.

This is election time for the JCP: five seats on the Java ME Executive Committee (EC) and five seats on the Java SE/EE EC are up for re-election. All JCP members are eligible to vote and may cast one vote for each seat (hence the recommendation to vote often). The voting process is in two stages. During October members cast their votes for three ratified seats on each EC.

In last month's column Onno Kluyt announced that he would be handing over the role of JCP chair to me. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Onno for all of the effort he's put into the JCP over the past several years, to thank the hard-working staff of the Program Management Office (who thankfully will not be moving on) for their support, and to introduce myself to the regular readers of this column.

It's been busy at the JCP for Spec Leads, Expert Groups, and Executive Committees over the summer. Quite a number of new proposals were submitted and were approved to be developed as JSRs; even more moved to new development stages, drawing closer to the finish line. And, I might add, that all happened at a balanced pace, meeting both the initial JSR development commitment and satisfying the rigors of developing complete RIs and TCKs in most the cases. Here are some of them.

In the May column I introduced the candidates nominated by the community for the top 2007 JCP Awards- the JCP Program 5th Annual Awards. For those of you who missed the grand finale at the Community Event organized by the JCP at JavaOne, here's the line-up of winners.

At the JavaOne conference earlier in May, Sun launched the OpenJDK project (http://openjdk.j ava.net). The OpenJDK project is Sun's Java SE implementation under the GPL license. While portions of the project, such as the compiler and Hotspot, were released at an earlier time, at the JavaOne conference all the class libraries and other source code that together making up JDK7 were launched. At the same time, Sun also announced an interim Governance Board for OpenJDK.

Every year the process of choosing the community's best starts with nominations in five categories: Member of the Year, Most Outstanding Spec Lead for Java Standard Edition/Enterprise Edition, Most Outstanding Spec Lead for Java Micro Edition, Most Innovative JSR for Java Standard Edition/Enterprise Edition, and Most Innovative JSR for Java Micro Edition. This year the JCP adds a new one: JCP Participant of the Year. At the time of writing the JCP Executive Committees (EC) representatives selected three to four nominees in each category and have another 10 days to vote for the winners. It's become a tradition to announce them at the community event the JCP organizes at JavaOne, which this year will host the fifth edition of the JCP Annual Awards.

Interested in getting the latest on Java technology standards at the 2007 JavaOne Conference? A great opportunity is awaiting you because the show has a lot to offer this year too. There are over 60 events - technical sessions (TS), Birds-of-a-Feather meetings (BOF), and Hands On Labs - based on Java specifications developed or in development through the JCP. Here are a few of them presented by none other than the Spec Leads.

Whether it's a prescriptive environment like the JCP or a less prescriptive one like OpenJDK and other open source software forums, communities have a lot in common.

It's well known in Java community neighborhoods that the jcp.org site has been the communication lifeline for the JCP program since its inception. It's been the virtual meeting place for members, the primary source of information and updates about Java standards, and the spot where key interactions for the development of JSRs have occurred.

The year 2006 was a great year for community technology development across the board. At the JCP, Spec Leads, Expert Groups members, observers and Executive Committee members worked together to take Java standards to the next level of development. Women Spec Leads had an outstanding contribution; in 2006 several of them won the distinction of Star Spec Leads for their leadership in driving Java specifications from concept, submission, standard development, to Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) and Reference Implementation (RI) delivery. Ekaterina Chtcherbina was one of them. Always passionate about Java and the community, she felt strongly that 'Java technology for me is not just a programming language. Rather it is a new style of technology innovation. Java technology is not created somewhere and given as a final technology to everyone. Instead, the evolution of Java technology relies highly on the community input.'

Congratulations go this year to IBM; Oracle, HP; Fujitsu; Doug Lea, professor of computer science; Motorola; Vodafone; Siemens; BenQ; Ericsson AB; and Jean-Marie Dautelle, individual developer and initiator of several open source projects. The first four are now re-elected on the SE/EE EC for another three-year term as a result of the Ratification Ballot and the fifth as a result of the Open Nominations/Election Ballot.

Our new effort to improve and change the Java Community Process through JSR 306 is still young; however, developers and all those interested have already started to provide valuable feedback and share their opinions generously. One such place where opinions were expressed early was the poll on JCP change that the java.net site put up (http://today.java.net/pu b/pq/123). 'Improving involvement of individuals' was the top pick, closely followed by 'Optimizing duration of JSRs.'

The JCP evolves in much the same way as software: we gain experience with the current implementation, gather ideas from many sources, give an initial ordering to the many ideas, write a draft, get initial feedback, write another draft, get more feedback and so on, towards a reasonable consensus of what the next version of the product or process shall become.

SafeNet, Inc. has announced the release of Sentinel Hardware Keys for Linux platforms, allowing software developers in the Linux community to protect 32-bit software applications from piracy and implement flexible licensing models. Sentinel Hardware Keys are the most widely-deployed rights management tokens for protecting software vendors from unauthorized use or distribution of their products, thereby increasing revenue.

We'll be coming to the rescue and offering the training program virtually, yes, from the JCP.org site itself starting this September

JavaOne has a catalyzing effect on Java developers: their enthusiasm and energies spike around the show; they ready their latest and greatest Java technology-based projects and solutions for the annual encounter with software programmers from around the world. Take for instance the JSR Spec Leads - they too intensify their efforts around the show to submit new JSRs to the program, advance work under development to the next stages, or finalize standards. JavaOne is a favorite event with JSR Spec Leads who don't miss on the opportunity to leverage the Conference as an ideal forum for sharing their accomplishments and forays into new Java standards projects with their fellow developers. The show's 2006 edition was no exception. Here are the JSRs that brought the JCP Program closer and closer to the 300 mark and crossed it in less than a month.

Last month I introduced to you the winners of the 4th JCP Program Annual Awards. But the story is only half told. To get the full picture and understand how tight the competition was, I'm inviting you to meet the runners-up for the JCP Program awards - those who came very close to winning the top honors this year. They are among the top performers to watch in the months and year ahead.

Last month at the 2006 JavaOne Conference, the Java Community Process (JCP) Program was brought into the spotlight repeatedly when Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz and other speakers urged attendees to join the community. The JCP made center stage again on Wednesday night at the JCP Program Community Event when the winners of the 4th JCP Annual Awards were announced. If you're not familiar with the selection process for the JCP Annual Awards, you should know that the JCP Executive Committees' (EC) representatives first select nominees and then cast votes to choose the winners from among them.

It's JavaOne show time again. The Java Community Process (JCP) Program and its members have a lot to share from the latest Java specification (JSR) accomplishments showcased in a diversity of forms at the conference, including technical sessions (TS), birds-of-a-feather meetings (BOF), industry panels, training sessions, round tables, and community events. Let me give you a mini tour of some of the JSRs on the conference agenda this year.

Every March here in the U.S. we mark Women's History Month in recognition of women's contribution to the progress of our world. Technology and the Java platform are benefiting as well from women's talent and dedication and an instantiation of that is women engineers' contribution to the development of Java standards through the Java Community Process Program. Several of them won the distinction of Star Spec Leads for their leadership in driving Java specifications from concept, submission, standard development, Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), and Reference Implementation (RI) delivery.

The red carpet isn't rolled out just on Hollywood Boulevard this time of the year. It happens in our community too. Six new spec leads recently reached stardom and I'm inviting you to meet them in this month's column. Exceptional spec lead performance gets noticed by the community and acknowledged through awards and the Star Spec Leads distinction as a key ingredient for an effective and smooth JSR development process. It's already an established tradition for the community that occurs two or three times a year to raise its most successful spec leads to stardom. Folks like Danny Coward, Pierre Gauthier, Janna Majakangas, Éamonn McManus, Antti Rantalahti, and Bill Shannon have set the bar yet higher with the timely and quality delivery of their JSRs. I'm delighted to congratulate them on behalf of the community and wish them a good year ahead!

2005 may be remembered as the year of eating cake. I had the amusing honor of singing 'Happy Birthday' and eat cake in Sao Paolo, Ede, San Francisco, Tokyo, and a couple more places as many Java groups and organizations around the world wanted to be part of the 10th year of Java technology. Together we journeyed from being amazed at a dancing Duke in a Web page to the full-frame, full-speed 3D graphics in today's computer games, all with the same technology. Just this year many achievements and events took place that deserve a mention, and I'd like to share my thoughts with you of what can be behind some this and what they may mean for the year ahead.

The election marathon that kicked off in September concluded last month with the open elections for the two JCP ECs. Congratulations and welcome aboard to the elected members: Intel Corporation and Hani Suleiman for the SE/EE EC and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and Symbian Ltd for the ME EC.

Last month I introduced the 2005 ratified ballot nominees for the JCP ECs. Meanwhile ratified voting concluded on October 17 and results confirmed all nominees: BEA Systems, SAP AG, and SAS Institute for the Standard/Enterprise Edition Executive Committee; and Nokia Corporation, IBM, and Philips Electronics UK for the Micro Edition Executive Committee. Congratulations to all and a warm welcome to new EC member SAS. You'll find more details about this round of elections at www.jcpelection2005.or g/jcp/ratification_result s.

It's that time of the year again when the JCP is in election mode and an update about it is more than timely. At writing time, the ratification ballot was just posted (September 27) and this year's nominees are BEA, SAP, and SAS for the Java SE/EE Executive Committee (EC) and Nokia, IBM, and Philips for the Java ME EC.

In the August issue of JDJ (Vol. 10, issue 8) I introduced to you some of the JSR Spec Leads who won the distinction of Star Spec Lead at JavaOne. What they all share, I was noting, is their passion for Java and their belief in the benefits of evolving the platform based on binary standards that ensure compatibility, which can make developer life a lot easier and save costs of all kinds down the road. It's now time you met the other stars of the constellation.

The JavaOne Conference was the stage for many Java premiers and launches. One of them was the Star Spec Leads program initiated by the JCP.

Last month at the 2005 JavaOne Conference, members of the Java Community Process (JCP) program got together with the other Java communities for our traditional annual Java Communities in Action event. We mixed, mingled, and celebrated our ongoing efforts to extend Java technology on all fronts.

This past month the JCP Executive Committees met in Nice, France, in concert with the TeleManagement World conference, where the worldwide telecommunications industry gathered to address technical, operating, and business issues related to the back office systems that they use to run their business with their networks and services portfolios. These back office systems are called Operation Support Systems and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS), or OSS for short.