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Coward acknowledged concerns about the JCP process, noting that he expects the organization to adopt proposed changes that would bring more openness and transparency to the development of specifications. Changes could include publishing schedules online and making email communication in JCP expert groups a matter of public record.
A more open process could encourage better results, Coward says. "We're humble enough to realize the next big idea in the Java space may not come from a Sun employee and we want to be ready to welcome new ideas and innovations with open arms," he says.
Tim Bray, the director of Web technologies at Sun, used his blog to urge his own company to "let [Java] go already" and "set the JCP free [and] turn it over to the community."
"The JCP is costing Sun opportunities and friends and gaining us very little that I can see," Bray wrote.
Technology blogger Riyad Kalla defends Sun's stewardship of Java, however.
In an email exchange with JavaWorld, Kalla wrote that "Sun has done a hell of a job over the last decade advancing the language while maintaining a good amount of compatibility across each release that programmers seem to discredit, but is likely one of the strongest reasons the Java language was as successful as it has been." Kalla does allow that Sun is not the only vendor with a stake, or future, in Java, though. "There is enough money (Intel, IBM, Red Hat, etc.) betting on Java that if Sun were to collapse tomorrow I'm sure multiple solutions would spin up until one true leader became evident."
While some may still question Sun's relevance to Java, Driver says it's pretty much a moot point.
"Sun owns Java, period. It's kind of a moot point," he says. "They own the trademark. They have a tremendous amount of control."
Driver also says Sun has done a creditable job involving the wider community, both through open sourcing Java and by allowing other vendors input through the JCP.
"Sun stopped being the critical path to success for Java many years ago," Driver says. "If Sun were to be acquired tomorrow, Java would continue through the JCP or open source process."
In the meantime, innovation is happening on several fronts in the Java community. SpringSource, maker of the widely adopted Spring platform, has staked a claim with its mission to take the complexity out of enterprise Java development. Simplicity is needed to maintain Java's competitive edge against such platforms as Microsoft's .NET and Ruby on Rails, Johnson argues.
Early Java products "imposed extensive complexity on developers," Johnson says. "To author a single business object you had to write typically at least three or probably five distinct source files."
SpringSource provides a smaller footprint by stripping out APIs and features that usually aren't needed, Driver says. "It's a lighter weight way to deliver Java with many of the same features as the enterprise edition," he says.
SpringSource, founded in 2004, recently expanded its reach into the Java community by acquiring G2One, which offers training and support for Groovy, an alternate language for the Java platform, and Grails, a Groovy-based Web application framework.
Sun is shifting its business priorities toward open source software, including Java, but Driver says the company has done a poor job competing in Java markets against enterprise middleware vendors such as IBM, Oracle's BEA division, and JBoss.
Sun has been successful with Java on mobile platforms, but otherwise Driver says "One might argue Sun hasn't done the best job in monetizing Java."
Regardless of Sun's struggles, Java will continue to improve based on innovations from startups like SpringSource and old-school companies like IBM, Driver says, noting that "IBM is credited for legitimizing Java in the enterprise." Java's status as open source also bodes well for the future, even if the JCP process were to stagnate, Driver predicts.
"There is an extremely deep ecosystem of open source software around Java," he says. "Anything the JCP doesn't do or doesn't do fast enough, there is generally an open source project [to fill the gap]."
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