Future versions of the Java EE technology will be branded as Jakarta EE, and it’s currently under active development at the Eclipse Foundation. When Java EE was under Oracle's stewardship, it used the JCP (Java Community Process) to make decisions and introduce new features. Since there's no JCP for Java EE at Eclipse, a new process had to be established. That process is now called the Jakarta EE Working Group.
The Jakarta EE's Working Group's Charter states its vision and scope:
The Jakarta EE working group will drive the evolution and broad adoption of technologies derived from or related to the Eclipse Enterprise for Java (EE4J) project.
It goes on to say that the Eclipse Foundation will provide implementations of API specifications, TCKs, and the working group has seven key tasks:
- Promote the "Jakarta EE" brand and its value in the marketplace.
- Provide vendor neutral marketing and other services to the Jakarta EE ecosystem.
- Define and manage a specification process to formalize the specifications that are defined within the scope of this working group.
- Define compatibility rules and a compatibility and branding process for implementations of these specifications to ensure application portability.
- Define licensing and intellectual property flows that encourage community participation, protect community members, and encourage usage.
- Manage the overall technical and business strategies for EE4J and related projects.
- Establish and drive a funding model that enables this working group and its community to operate on a sustainable basis.
In early February, Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, wrote about the first name, the EE.next Working Group. He notes that it is a replacement for the JCP for Java EE. Corporations can join, and individuals can participate if they're committers on EE4J projects.
Milinkovich notes that there are several differences between the Jakarta EE Working Group and the JCP. First, it's vendor neutral. No organization has any unique roles or rights. Second, it has open intellectual property flows. Third, it will use open source practices to be more agile.
The group's charter has a section on membership and notes that a business entity must be at least a Solutions Member of the Eclipse Foundation. The annual membership fee is tiered based on revenue: less than USD 1 million and less than ten employees cost $1500. If your revenue is greater than $250 million, the fee is $20,000. Solutions membership is only $5000 for non-profit organizations, universities, standards bodies, and many others.
Beyond that, there are five classes of membership in the working group that all have ties to membership in the Eclipse Foundation.
- Strategic: must be a Strategic Member of the Eclipse Foundation (contribute a percentage of revenue annually, min $25K; max $500K), and have a minimum of four developers working on EE4J projects.
- Influencer: must be an Enterprise Member (tiered based on revenue, min $25K; max $100K).
- Participant: must be Solutions, Enterprise, or Strategic Members.
- Committer: individuals who contribute code to Eclipse Foundation projects.
- Guest: organizations that are Associate members (max $5K) who have been invited for one year by the Steering Committee. Typical guests include JUGs and academic research centers. Guest members do not have voting rights.
The first message announcing the formation of the Jakarta EE Working Group was sent on March 9, 2018. If you'd like to follow along with the group's discussions, you can find its mailing list information on the Eclipse website.
