Welcome to the November edition of the JCP column! Each month you can read about the Java Community Process: newly submitted JSRs, new draft specs, Java APIs that were finalized, and other news from the JCP. For November I'll be covering a handful of new JSRs, several final JSRs including one rather longrunning one that has now reached the finish line, a plug for ApacheCon, and a report on the first phase of this year's EC elections.

New JSRs
Since the writing of last month's column, four new JSRs were submitted by JCP members. The first new JSR of this year was number 203, and the JSR count is now at 232; thus the community keeps running like clockwork and is on schedule to again hit the average of 40 to 45 new JSRs per year.

This month Siemens has submitted two JSRs. JSR 229, Payment API for J2ME environment, will be developing an API to initiate payment transactions and methods to allow service providers to support different payment instruments. JSR 182 focuses on payment interactions with Web-based services. As such, it can be viewed as a payment instrument implementation for which JSR 229 would provide the framework. JSR 230, Data Sync API, proposes to provide a mechanism for J2ME applications to synchronize data stored on the device with data stored on a server. The JSR aims to develop a high-level API that can plug into a number of underlying synchronization protocols such as SyncML. Also for J2ME technology, Nokia and Motorola have submitted JSR 232, Mobile Operational Management. The proposal is to provide functionality that allows devices based on CLDC and MIDP 2.0 to install and remove components on demand. This gives developers the opportunity to create applications as interoperable and shareable components; it also creates opportunities for providers, manufacturers, and others when these components can be deployed aftermarket and across a wide range of devices.

New in the J2SE environment is Sun's JSR, JSR 231, Java Bindings for OpenGL. The proposal describes the development of Java bindings to the native 3D graphics library, including all core GL calls and the GLU library. This provides the Java developer with access to hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in a portable and open standard way. It will be delivered as an optional package on top of the J2SE platform.

Final JSRs
There are three final JSRs that I want to cover here. To start off, JSR 97, JavaHelp API, is one that I am quite fond of. While it took some time for this JSR to finish, it delivers functionality that is especially useful to tool vendors and developers of complex desktop applications in general. It's a rich help system aimed at both developers and authors. It's also a nice example of the Java Foundation Classes technology. Also for the J2SE environment, JSR 160, JMX Remote API, has successfully completed. This JSR adds client-side APIs for a so-called Java Manager to discover and access JMX-based agents. This complements JSR 3, which provided the API for management agents and services.

On the J2EE technology side, JSR 124 went final. The J2EE Client Provisioning Specification allows a J2EE server to discover suitable client applications available for delivery, to monitor the delivery of a client application, and to separate the provisioning of various client applications from each other. The API supports several client platforms such as J2ME MIDP and Java Web Start-enabled applications.

Upcoming Birthday Party
The JCP was launched in December 1998, so in one month it's the community's 5th birthday. To celebrate, the JCP Program Office will be at ApacheCon US 2003 in Las Vegas from November 16-19. The JCP is sponsoring the event and putting together a few activities at the conference to call attention to this milestone. I invite you to come along and discuss with me how the JCP has evolved since December '98 and what directions it can/should take in the next five years.

The Elections
On October 14 the first phase of the EC elections were completed - the ratification vote by the JCP membership on the nominations by Sun. For the ME EC, Matsushita, Motorola, Siemens, and Vodafone were ratified. For the SE/EE EC, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, and Oracle were ratified. Congratulations to these members and, in addition, a welcome to Vodafone to the ME EC. The voting for the second phase of the elections starts on November 1. These are the self-nominated seats. For each EC there are two seats up for reelection. For ME EC these are BEA (term expired) and Zucotto Wireless (out of business); for SE/EE EC these are Doug Lea (term expired) and Cisco (withdrawing from the EC). There is no limit to the number of terms a JCP member can serve on the EC, so I expect that both BEA and Doug Lea will run for reelection. You can find out more about the elections at PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Web site at http://jcpelection2003.org.

That's it for this month. I'm very interested in your feedback. Please email me with your comments, questions, and suggestions.