The OpenJDK project has released early an access snapshot of the Java Module System (JSR 277) and Improved Modularity Support (JSR 294). JSR 277 addresses modularity from a deployment unit perspective. JSR 294 addresses modularity from a development perspective, introducing a new language construct, called superpackages, for information hiding.
The Apache Derby project has made a beta available of the upcoming 10.3 release. The 10.3 release includes security enhancements, language-based ordering, other features, bug fixes, and performance enhancements. Egil Sørensen, a student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, has also submitted his MS thesis work to add hot standby replication functionality to Derby.
Sun has submitted the Servlet 3.0 specification to the Java Community Process (JCP) as Java Specification Request (JSR) 315. High level goals include web framework pluggability, EoD (ease of development) features, async and Comet support, security, alignment with other specifications, and various other improvements.
The first GNU Classpath/Sun Java hybrids have begun to appear. The hybrids combine GNU Classpath with Java code that Sun has recently released under the GPL either to improve an existing project or to further the goal of having a completely Free JDK.
