Roedy is wrong when thinking Java will not fork disastrously and rapidly.
There are 2 groups of people who will quickly and fatally fork the platform as soon as they get the chance.
First the hardcore Linux/GPL crowd who've for years vowed to destroy Java. The best way to do that is to destroy the platform independence and WORA by rapid forking and introducing first binary and then source differences between JVM versions.
Second are the well meaning but largely ignorant people who think they've found a "bug" or want to introduce a new "feature".
Think all the people who think that == should have identical functionality to equals, people thinking that multiple inheritance a-la C++ is a swell idea, people who think Java is pass by reference and the incapability to return a reference through a method parameter is a bug.
They'll all be forking the platform too, causing more incompatible JVMs to hit the street at an alarming rate.
It'll soon be back to the bad old days of the 1980s when you had to specify your supported platforms highly explicitly and there were hundreds of such platforms around leading to developers having to choose either skyhigh development cost to release for dozens of platforms (each requiring different compilation, often code changes, and often packaging as well) or face a very small market indeed.
If that's the future of Java I'll soon be looking for another job again because I am convinced Java cannot survive in such an environment and it's as I see it the logical end result of releasing the JLS, JVMS, and standard API to the mercy of anyone interested in changing them for whatever reason.
The only way to prevent that is keeping the JLS and JVMS under the direct control of the JCP and keep in place the existing requirement to pass the compatibility test suite (which should also remain under strict control of the JCP) in order to use the name Java.
The JCP itself should remain under strict control of Sun itself to prevent it being subverted by those with an agenda which would be destructive to the platform as well.
In effect, the current situation would have to remain in place, with the possible difference that the restrictions on using the source code might be able to be relaxed and a more flexible system for submitting contributions might be put in place.
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