
Oracle and the Java Ecosystem
Oracle is making huge efforts to engage with the wider Java ecosystem, but challenges still remain.

Oracle is making huge efforts to engage with the wider Java ecosystem, but challenges still remain.
In the middle of this year, Oracle launched a new process called the JDK Enhancement Process, or JEP for short. What is it all about?
The Apache Harmony PMC initiated a vote earlier this week to begin the process of moving the codebase into the Apache Attic and disbanding the PMC. With 18 for and 2 against, the result will be that the Apache Harmony project will be wound up and placed in the Attic for posterity.
IBM have announced the availability of IBM SDK Java Technology Edition Version 7 for both their AIX platform and the Linux platform. The SDK is available for download from developerWorks and brings the compiler and runtime to the same level as found in OpenJDK.
Following on from last week's release of Java 7, InfoQ spoke to Adam Messinger, Vice President of Development in the Fusion Middleware group at Oracle, to get more information about the release and Oracle's plan for Java 8.

With the recent legal battle between Google and Oracle there is a renewed focus on the patent issues for Java and .NET. Tim Smith introduces the licenses offered by Oracle/Sun and Microsoft, with a focus on how they may affect third party implementation. Possible motivations for Google Android’s unique implementation are also covered.

Java 7 is looking to improve support for dynamic languages using the Java Virtual Machine for their runtime environment. John Rose has been leading a project to explore some options, and JSR 292 will standardise some of this work for Java 7. InfoQ takes a look at the problems JSR 292 solves, and talks to JRuby lead Charles Nutter to find out more about InvokeDynamic in practice.

InfoQ examines three techniques for encouraging experimentation with potential new Java language features - DSLs, the annotation processor, and moving the syntactic sugar from the language to the IDE.

Over the last few years, modularity for Java has been an active discussion topic. From the (now defunct) JSR 277 to the recognition of JSR 291 and the ongoing JSR 294, modularity is seen as a necessary step in Java's evolution. Even future JVM-based languages like Scala are considering modularity. So, what does modularity mean, and why should you care?

At QCon 2008, Neal Gafter discusses how to evolve a widely deployed language without causing disruption using planned changes for JDK7 (superpackages, closures, annotations on types, type inference, exception handling, and self types) as an example. He examines how the changes are conditioned by preexisting language design choices, and discusses their influence on API design.
In this interview, Google’s Josh Bloch shares his views on the open-source Java landscape as well as on the future of the Java language, including changes being implemented via Project Coin. Bloch also discusses support for multi-core in programming languages, support for multiple languages on the JVM, Java pain points and the “next big language.”