A New Day...

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Over the last seven plus years, Jini technology has
proven an elegant and empowering way to build and
deploy distributed systems which are highly adaptive
to change. The core technology has evolved, a decision
process (JDP) adopted, Standards created, shared projects
initiated and advanced, and impressive commercial use
and individual work with the technology. Along the way,
we've built one of the most supportive and inspiring
Communities in the tech world, with a fun and interesting
culture.

Like with the systems we build, change is constant and
a new day is dawning in the Jini Community. It's one
filled with excitement, risks, and lots of opportunity
(but we wouldn't want it any other way, would we? ;-)).

I'd like to make the initial announcement here on the
changes that will be taking place, and begin a discussion
on things we'll need to figure out together. Before I do
that, though, I'd like to give you a short background
on some of the key catalysts driving the need for change:

   * The need to go more open
     - we were successful in changing the licensing model
       for Jini technology (a year ago, from SCSL to an open
       licensing model). The choice of the Apache License,
       Version 2.0 for Sun's contributions seems right on a
       year later. We had hoped these changes would spark
       interest from a larger set of developers, some of
       which may have been disinclined by the previous license.
       This has not occurred... interest and involvement
       with the technology and in the Community has continued
       at a steady rate, with no significant rise in adoption.

     - the impression given by our Community site, Jini.org,
       is surely part of the issue, as it still bears the gated
       appearance required by the SCSL license. Regardless,
       though, our belief is that the historical effects left
       by SCSL have created a fairly large hurdle to convincing
       open source developers that Jini technology and Jini.org
       are truly an open source technology and Community.

     - lastly, we (Sun's Jini technology team) have been
       wrestling with the need to adopt an open source
       development model for the Jini Technology Starter Kit.
       There has been much interest and debate on this over the
       year(s) in the Community, and with the license change
       last year, it seems the inevitable and right direction
       to go with the technology.

   * Becoming users
     - We (Sun's Jini technology team) have been asked by
       Sun management to leverage our technology and expertise
       to further some of Sun's key strategies and product
       initiatives. This is recognition of our work over the
       years, and the desire to take advantage of it to benefit
       Sun's strategies and financial goals in this tough
       business climate.

   * Getting our bounce back
     - In order for things to continue evolving and growing,
       we're at a state in our technology and Community
       lifecycle that needs a change, a spark to enable
       additional leaders to emerge, and individuals and companies
       to get involved at increased levels to chart the future
       path. We also need new developers finding and adopting
       the technology to help create new invention and opportunity.


Based on these and other factors, we're embarking on a four
step plan, outlined below. There are a lot of details and
questions to discuss around each of these, so in the interest
of some brevity, I'll provide a top level overview, and then
follow-up with separate emails on each to clarify and begin
discussion of the details.

  1) Propose "Jini" to the Apache Software Foundation (apache.org)
     - we feel that "Jini" would make a compelling top level
       project at Apache, and plan to make contacts there in
       hopes of successfully proposing "Jini" as a project.

  2) Decommission Jini.org on June 30, 2006
     - the costs of maintaining the site, as well as the need
       to invest other funds to transform it into a more open
       source style site, prohibit us from continuing our
       own collaborative development site going forward.

     - we have a lot of great projects on Jini.org, and want
       to help those project owners move their projects and
       content to another collaborative website to continue
       sharing. There looks to be interest in starting a
       "Jini Community" area on Java.net, and as this occurs,
       we'd strongly encourage project owners to move there.

  3) Create a "new Jini.org" site starting in July, 2006
     - there has been some interest expressed in the Community
       to host an informational site on Jini technology, where
       new developers could get an overview of the technology
       and better understand how and where it's used, and
       (potentially) by whom. The idea is to redirect the
       Jini.org domain to this new site.

  4) Hold a Jini Community Meeting (the 10th) in September, 2006
     - we have a history and culture of gathering together
       each year to reconnect and learn what's happening with
       Jini technology and in the Jini Community. With all of
       the change and transition about to happen, it is more
       important than ever to continue that tradition and
       organize a 10th Jini Community Meeting for later this
       year. Sun will sponsor this event.

In addition, part of Sun's Jini technology team has already
started "Becoming users" by working in the Sun Grid space,
delivering an early (0.1) release of a project on Java.net
called "Compute Server". It's aim is to enable Java developers
to easily and efficiently use the Sun Grid Compute Utility as
a platform for the distributed execution of parallel computations.
It leverages Jini and JavaSpaces underneath. We hope you take a
look at:  <http://computeserver.dev.java.net>

A huge thanks for your continued interest and passion around
Jini and JavaSpaces technology. I know there will be lots of
questions (hopefully, some of the follow-up emails with details
will help) and discussion to happen, but I hope overall that
you'll embrace these positive and exciting changes.

Opportunity awaits.

-Jim

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