Delurking comments on the 0.1.5 specification

[Alex Buckley]

On 4/2/2010 10:26 AM, Paul Benedict wrote:
> Since Alex said the Java 7 EG and this mailing list may or may not
> have any relationship, I have begun to perceive a duality here.
> I think Sun/Oracle is supporting community involvement to see if any
> good ideas flesh out. So from one perspective, they are merely
> observers to gather the good ideas that might exist from outside the
> company. Average Joe is probably happy he can participate in a
> discussion and get personal feedback from Sun/Oracle engineers.

You are generally right so far. Oracle, as the OpenJDK project's 
initiator, is a bit more than an observer - witness the two draft specs 
produced. But of course there is a lot of discussion to be observed too.

> What I don't think Average Joe knew is how little obligation
> Sun/Oracle has on taking the ideas.

Whoah, what? I said there's no guarantee that EG members will look at 
this list. Oracle is not one of those EG members.

> I got the impression these mailing lists were more than community
> discussion and were actually going to craft a proposal to send to the
> EG.

That's exactly right. When a JSR is started and the EG formed, it is 
usual for the spec lead to put a proposal on the table. The proposal 
usually comes from private discussions within the spec lead's company. 
For a closures JSR where Oracle is the spec lead, the proposal will be 
the draft spec as discussed by the OpenJDK Project Lambda list.

> After what Alex said, it almost sounds like everyone here is wasting
> their time. Why continue contributing? It's been stated your emails
> may never even be read by the EG. I think that's truly
> disappointing.

Some EG members may never even look at this list. As EG discussions 
proceed, it will probably be obvious who. Direct your ire to them.

Alex