Could Java EE be headed for a split from Oracle?
Not all is well at Oracle headquarters according to reports. Java EE, the enterprise edition of the popular software platform may split according to Java EE devotees.be headed for a fork? Java EE advocates, still frustrated with Oracle’s perceived Java disinterest, are ready to move forward with their own improvements.
The main reason behind this split according to Java EE advocates is Oracle’s perceived disinterest in the platform. According to them, lack of support from Oracle will leave them with no option but to move forward with their own improvements.
Java EE 8 with HTTP 2.0 and HTML5 support is reportedly being readied for June 2017 release. But the Java EE advocates say that Oracle will miss this date. So they have formed two groups to enhance Java EE on their own, outside of the jurisdiction of Oracle and the formal JCP (Java Community Process).
The two groups are Java EE Guardians and MicroProfile.io, will work independently from Oracle and will build extensions to accommodate microservices in Java EE. Red Hat and IBM have joined in as contributors to MicroProfile.io. Payara, which has built a drop-in replacement for the open-source GlassFish Java EE application server that Oracle has reduced its attention to, is participating as well.
It is not a Java fork!
Both Java EE Guardians and MicroProfile disagree that their efforts are aimed at creating a ‘fork.’ “A complete fork in the pure open source sense for Java EE is far too risky from a legal standpoint,” said Reza Rahman, leader of Java EE Guardians and a former Java EE evangelist at Oracle. “What can be done is re-create APIs from scratch without using any of the existing Java EE APIs. That’s both hard and very regrettable because Java EE APIs are so pervasive.”
“A fork is a strong word. I wouldn’t use the word ‘fork’,”Rich Sharples from Red Hat says.
MicroProfile, he said, plans to augment Java EE with an initial baseline of microservices capabilities around Jax-RS (Java API for RESTful Services), CDI (Contexts and Dependency Injection), and Java API for JSON Processing, which marshals REST calls back into Java. “We’re trying to get working implementations of the MicroProfile — not just one, but from multiple vendors — by September, by JavaOne,” the annual Java technical conference held in late September, Sharples said.
