This petition was created by the Java EE Guardians. We are a group of people and organizations very concerned about Oracle’s current lack of commitment to Java EE. We are doing everything we can to preserve the interests of the Java EE community and the global IT industry. We believe that working together – including Oracle – we can ensure a very bright future for Java, Java EE and server-side computing.

To make any of this possible we urgently need your support. Please help us by signing this petition. Every voice counts.

Java EE is incredibly important to the long term health of the entire Java ecosystem. This is because of the basic fact that Java on the server will remain mission critical to global IT in the foreseeable future.

• Hundreds of thousands of applications worldwide are written in Java EE, many of those applications are regularly being brought to light. Even applications and frameworks that claim they do not use Java EE are in fact heavily dependent on many Java EE APIs today and going forward, regardless of trends like cloud or microservices. Just some of these APIs include Servlet, JAX-RS, WebSocket, JMS, JPA, JSF and so much more.
• There were no less than 4,500 input points to the groundbreaking, unprecedented survey to determine Java EE 8 features.
• In major survey after survey developers continue to show their strong support for Java EE and its APIs.
• Java EE vendors and products are some of the most enviably profitable in our industry certainly including Oracle and WebLogic.
• Few multi-vendor open standards are as widely implemented, supported, depended upon or as widely participated in as Java EE. Indeed there are no practical alternatives to Java EE as an open standards based platform.
• There is an extremely passionate, responsible community behind Java EE – most technologies would be hard pressed to find anything like the Java EE community. The Java EE Guardians is a testament to this fact.

There is growing evidence that Oracle is conspicuously neglecting Java EE, weakening a very broad ecosystem that depends on strong Java EE development. Almost all work from Oracle on Java EE has ceased for more than six months with no end to the inactivity in sight. Unless things change soon Java EE 8 won’t be delivered in anywhere near the time when it was initially promised if it is delivered at all.

It is very difficult to determine why this neglect from Oracle is occurring or how long it will last. Oracle has not shared it’s motivations even with it’s closest commercial partners let alone the community. A very troubling possibility is that it is being done because Oracle is backing away from an open standards based collaborative development approach and is instead pursuing a highly proprietary, unilateral path.

There is a lot the community is doing together to try to tackle this problem the best we can.

• We are continuing to enthusiastically evangelize Java EE, including Java EE 8.
• We are strongly supporting active Java EE 8 JSRs like CDI 2 led by companies like Red Hat.
• We are lobbying Oracle to fulfill its commitments to the Java EE community through all channels available to us. This includes Java EE 8 expert groups as well as the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee (EC).
• We are keeping all Java EE 8 expert group discussions active, in many cases despite lack of activity from Oracle.
• We are moving ahead Java EE 8 reference implementations, TCKs and specification documents through open source in many cases despite inactive Oracle specification leads. Our biggest challenge in this regard is access to the TCK and getting our work accepted by Oracle specification leads.
• We are exploring whether some inactive Oracle led JSRs can switch ownership to us or vendors like Red Hat, IBM, Tomitribe or Payara. Our biggest challenge in this regard is persuading Oracle to relinquish control of JSRs they are not delivering on.
• In conjunction to the above, in the interim we will provide the functionality that should be standardized in Java EE through open source. We will work with vendors like Oracle, Red Hat, IBM, Tomitribe and Payara to include these features in their Java EE runtimes out-of-the-box. We will provide these features to vendors completely free of charge with the clear goal of standardization as quickly as possible via the JCP.

As committed as we are we still need Oracle to cooperate with us as a responsible, community focused steward to move Java EE forward. Persuading Oracle to adapt to the legitimate interests of people outside of itself – even its own customers – has proven challenging in the past. In all likelihood it may not be easy this time either, though there must always remain plentiful room for reasoned optimism. That is why your voice is so very important.

Please join us in signing this petition to ask Oracle to:

• Clarify how it intends to preserve the best interests of the Java, Java EE and servers-side computing ecosystems.
• Commit to delivering Java EE 8 in time with a reasonable feature set that satisfies the needs of the community and the industry.
• Effectively cooperate with the community and other vendors to either accept contributions or transfer ownership of Java EE 8 work.

After signing the petition please join us at javaee-guardians.io.

The Java EE Guardians include many technical luminaries, journalists, Java Champions, JCP experts, JUG leaders and Java developers including Dr. James Gosling, Cameron McKenzie, Arjan Tijms, Bauke Scholtz, Werner Keil, Reza Rahman and Kito Mann.

The Java EE Guardians include many Java User Groups and companies around the world including Connecticut JUG, Istanbul JUG, the Japan JUG, Columbus, Ohio JUG, Peru JUG, Madras JUG, India, Esprit Tunisian JUG, Pakistan JUG and Bulgarian JUG.