As I write this the JCP’s Program Office staff is busy preparing for this year’s JavaOne Conference, to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from May 6 through May 9. As you read this you’re probably at the conference, or if you were unable to attend I hope you’ve had a chance to follow it via webcasts, blogs, and news reports.

The JCP’s role at JavaOne is significant. Indirectly we’re involved in the majority of the technical sessions, panel discussions, and BOFs, since these address technologies that have been or are being developed through the JCP program. See the conference catalog for full details. More directly, we have our own presence at the conference through a number of educational, social, and technical activities that we have organized for JCP members, Spec Leads, developers, and press. Here’s a summary, but please double-check with us (visit our booth at the Pavilion) for the latest status.

The JCP Booth
Starting Tuesday through Thursday we will have a booth in the Pavilion. Members and non-members are encouraged to stop by to say hello, to collect some free goodies, and to meet up with members of the PMO staff who will be available to answer questions. We’re also planning to demo the new version of the jcp.org website. We’ve been working on this for quite some time now, adding collaborative features such as forums to the existing functionality. We hope you’ll like what you see and we’re looking forward to getting your feedback.

Training Sessions
On the Monday before JavaOne (during CommunityOne Day we will hold several training sessions at the Intercontinental Hotel:

• A general introduction to the JCP (what we do and how we work), directed at the broader JCP membership.
• Training for Spec Leads and Expert Group members, providing detailed coverage of the process of developing a spec, RI, and a TCK.
• A session on media relations, discussing how the PMO can help members of the JCP promote their activities.

These sessions will be videotaped and posted on our website a couple of weeks after the conference.

Expert Group Meetings
These days Expert Groups do most of their work online, via email and using other collaborative tools such as Wikis. Regular phone conferences are also important, but every Expert Group also understands the importance of face-to-face meetings. As with JavaOne, the dynamics are different when you’re all in the same place at the same time, sharing meals and conversation and relaxing as well as working together on the task in hand.

Because so many developers attend JavaOne, this conference provides an opportunity (assuming that people can spare the time from the conference, and the associated socializing and networking) for Expert Groups to meet face-to-face.

The JCP has reserved a meeting room in the Intercontinental Hotel for use by Expert Groups who wish to hold face-to-face meetings, and we expect that several groups will take advantage, even if it does mean missing some of the sessions. You can’t beat face-time…

Social Events
Tuesday will be a busy day. After the Pavilion reception in the evening the PMO will host a dinner for Spec Leads and EC members. During this event we will announce the winners of the sixth annual JCP Program Awards, honoring the contributions that Spec Leads, Executive Committee members, and individual JCP members have made to the development of Java standards. There will be six awards this year:

• JCP Member Of The Year
• JCP Participant of the year
• Outstanding Java SE/EE Spec Lead
• Most Innovative Java SE/EE JSR
• Outstanding Java ME Spec Lead
• Most Innovative Java ME JSR

Nominations for these awards will be announced prior to the event at http://jcp.org/en/press/news/awards/awards_main, where you can also learn about past winners.

Later on Tuesday evening we’ll be joining forces with members of the Java Open Source community at an Un-BOF to be held at The Thirsty Bear Restaurant. There’ll be beer and snacks and an opportunity to mingle with Java technology architects, open source thought leaders, Expert Group members, Spec Leads, JCP Executive Committee members, and members of the JCP Program Office. Space at this event will be limited, so come and talk to us in advance if you’d like to attend.

Press and Analyst Roundtable
On Wednesday afternoon we’ll be holding a press and analyst round table at the Intercontinental Hotel. We hope and expect to have interesting news…

Panel Discussion and BOF
On Thursday I’ll be leading both a panel discussion and a BOF. If you’re a Java ME developer, or if you’re simply interested in the current state of affairs within the mobile phone space, I encourage you to attend PAN-5577, “Mobile Service Architecture: Spelling Out the Link Between JSR Features and JSR Draft Reviews.” The panel will discuss the experience of developing and deploying JSR 248: Mobile Service Architecture (MSA), which made its final release late in 2006, and in developing the follow-on JSR 249: Mobile Service Architecture 2, which recently published an Early Draft Review. These specifications define the “stack” of component JSRs (graphics, web services, location man-agement, and so on) that you can expect to find on more and more mobile phones. The panel includes co-spec leads Kay Glahn from Vodafone and Erkki Rysa from Nokia, together with Cuihtlauac Alvarado from France Telecom/Orange, independent developer Jean-Marie Dautelle, Jeff Griffin from Sony Ericsson, and Calinel Pasteanu from Sun Microsystems.

The BOF session (BOF-5578 – “Who Needs Standards in an Open Source World?”) will focus on the relationship between standards development and open source – a theme that I’ve addressed several times in this column. I plan to give a brief presentation on the value of standards and the challenges and opportunities that open source development methodologies pose for the JCP program, and then I’ll open things up for an informal discussion. If you’re an open source developer who wants to know what the JCP has to offer, or a JCP member who’s interested in how open source development processes and licensing models will affect our work, then this session is for you.

After stretching your brain at these sessions, go on down to the After Dark Bash. Right now I don’t know what the organizers have planned, but if past years’ events are anything to go by, it will be fun.

See you there...