I'm writing this article on the day before the US presidential Election. As happens, we're also in the middle of the JCP's annual election cycle. Our elections consist of two phases. The first round, during which members vote for three ratified seats on each Executive Committee (EC), has recently been completed. The second round, for two elected seats on each EC, is about to begin. (The election process is described briefly here and in more detail in our Process Document).

Sun nominates the candidates for the ratified seats, using the nomination process to achieve and maintain a balance between different geographical areas, industries, and interests within the Java community. The nominations for the ratified seats in this year's elections were:

• Nokia, Philips, and IBM  for the Java ME Executive Committee
• Ericsson, SpringSource, and SAP for the Java SE/EE Executive Committee

All of these nominees were elected. Four of them are existing members with long-standing records of participation in the JCP and on the EC. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the re-elected members (Michael Bechauf from SAP, David Girle from IBM, Jon Piesing from Philips, and Pentti Savolainen from Nokia) for their efforts over the years and for their continued commitment to the JCP.

I'd also like to welcome our two new members: Ericsson and SpringSource.

Ericsson, as a major player in the cellphone industry, are already represented on the Java ME EC. They were nominated for an additional seat on the ME EC because of their commitment to the use of standards (and of course Java) in the backend infrastructure that powers the telecommunications industry. (40% of all cellphone traffic passes through their systems.) Ericsson's representative on the SE/EE EC will be Jens Jenssen, who has been working with Java from the very early days. Jens is currently the specification lead for JSR 319, Availability Management for Java.

SpringSource will be represented by Rod Johnson, the creator of the Spring Framework. In addition to being a major contributor to the development of enterprise Java, Rod has also consistently pushed for reform within the JCP. He and I have discussed the subject at various conferences during the past year, and I'm glad to welcome him as the "candidate of change".

In the second round of the elections any JCP member can nominate themselves. This year two seats on each EC are up for election. Two sitting members are nominating themselves for re-election (Intel for the SE/EE EC and Sony Ericsson for the ME EC.) There are several additional challengers, including a number of individuals. (80% of the JCP's membership consists of individuals or non-profit organizations.) If you're a member, please vote.

The Latest JSR News
Before I discuss this month's active JSRs here's a quick addendum to my recent column on security. In my list of security-related JSRs I omitted JSR 321: Trusted Computing API for Java, which plans to develop a Trusted Software Stack for Java providing comparable functionality to that offered by the C-language.TSS developed by the Trusted Computing Group. My apologies to the spec lead, Ronald Toegl of the IAIK Graz University of Technology in Austria.

There are several JSRs worth noting this month. (See the Focus on JSRs section on the JCP homepage (http://jcp.org/en/home/index) or subscribe to our mailing list for full details.)

First, congratulations to SK Telecom, the spec lead for JSR 298: Telematics API for Java ME, which made its final release in October. This JSR defines Java APIs to enable mobile devices to access and control various devices in cars. For example, you could set the climate-controls, unlock the doors, or control the anti-theft system from your phone. Before too long, every device and every machine will be connected!

Another Java ME JSR, first released in 2006, is JSR 256: Mobile Sensor API. Led by Nokia and now in its third Maintenance Review, this JSR defines APIs for managing sensors embedded within mobile devices. Many cellphones, for example, contain sensors for reading the battery charge level or the network field intensity. Some, following the lead of Nokia who were the first to do so, include an accelerometer that can be used to sense the orientation of the screen (as in the iPhone), to enable certain phone or application functions to be controlled by gesture, or even to control a radio-controlled model car.

There have also been several developments in the Java EE space this month. Firstly, JSR 243: Data Objects 2.0, led by Sun Microsystems, reached its Maintenance Release 2. JDO defines a standardized API to enable the persistence of plain old java objects (POJOs) to any type of data store. Version 1 of the specification was defined by JSR 12 back in 2002. Starting with version 2.0 the JSR has been developed and maintained as an Apache project, and the Reference Implementation (RI) and the compatibility test suite (the TCK) have been developed collaboratively and released as open source. (This is therefore yet another example of an "open and transparent" JSR.)

JSR-314: JavaServer Faces 2.0, led by Star Spec Lead Ed Burns and his colleague Roger Kitain from Sun Microsystems, entered its second Early Draft Review. As I reported in an earlier column, this JSR is also being run in a very open manner, with significant public participation. The JSR aims to greatly simplify the process of building user interfaces for Java server applications, enabling developers to quickly build web applications by assembling reusable UI components in a page, connecting these components to an application data source, and wiring client-generated events to server-side event handlers. If you're interested, join them at java.net.

Last but by no means least, this month also saw an Early Draft Review of JSR 316, the specification for the next version of the Java EE platform (Java EE 6). Led by Roberto Chinnici and Bill Shannon from Sun Microsystems, this JSR will focus on making the platform more modular (by defining profiles, and supporting "extensibility"), will prune some older technologies that are no longer widely used, and will continue to promote the ease of development theme that was started in Java EE 5. You can find a useful summary of the scope of the JSR in this article.

By the way, if you're wondering what's happening in the Java SE world, check out the OpenJDK project at java.net. The developers are trying a different approach - working out the new ideas through open-source projects first, before later submitting them as JSRs. I'm sure they'll welcome you if you'd like to participate.

Finally, talking of participating, once again I'd like to remind you to vote in our elections. (If you're reading this online you probably still have time.) Please visit our election website to see the full list of candidates, to read their campaign materials, and to cast your vote. We need everyone's input, and the representatives you choose for the Executive Committees will help to determine the kind of organization we become. You are the Community in the Java Community Process.

Until next month...