All,
I have been following this thread with great interest. I have to
admit that I am finding Steve Millidge's arguments about biting
the bullet and switching everything to the jakarta namespace
compelling. But at the same time breaking every customer's
existing Java EE application is a not to be done lightly.
But I have noticed that there are some assumptions implicit in
what people are saying that should be discussed explicitly. Those
assumptions are basically about the overarching intent of each of
the Jakarta EE X releases.
I would like to throw out the following strawman proposal for the
main themes for the next couple of releases for your
consideration. Even if everyone thinks that this a completely
stupid idea, I do think that there is value is achieving consensus
at the level of release "themes" before continuing the debate on
release content. I was also say that I think that it is at least
plausible that some amount of parallel development is possible
with these suggestions.
Releases and themes
- Jakarta EE 8: As soon as possible in 2019 (July/August?)
- For all extents and purposes technically identical to Java
EE 8, but licensed under the Jakarta EE licensing regime,
rather than the JCP's.
- Indicator of success is Payara (and ideally Apache TomEE
and others) are using the sailing ship logo.
- Jakarta EE 9: TBC, but plausibly within 2019
- Deprecate and remove unwanted APIs/specs following the JESP
process
- Continue use of the javax namespace for the remaining
specifications, Likely the last release to ever make use of
javax.
- Port to Java SE 11
- Basically, this becomes the first Jakarta EE LTS release
- Jakarta EE 10: TBC
- Switch to jakarta namespace
- Perhaps break backwards compatibility
- Perhaps leverage some sort of application transformation
tool to map applications' use of javax to jakarta
If this approach were to be adopted, I would suggest that we open
Spec Projects for Jakarta EE 9 and 10 simultaneously in late Q2.
Please adjust your phasers down to stun :)