Oracle shifts Java EE 8 to open source

After years of speculation, Oracle has finally disclosed its plans of open sourcing Java EE 8. The company is shifting the latest Java Enterprise Edition to an open source foundation at the time of launching the v8.0.

Oracle has maintained the open source Java project for years, but there were recently some complaints that the company was shifting the

Java EE engineering team on to other projects. Oracle had eventually restated its commitment to support Java EE last year. However, the Java community has so far been demanding that the company run the project independently.

David Delabassee, a software evangelist at Oracle, published a blog post announcing the company’s decision. “Although Java EE is developed in open source with the participation of the Java EE community, often the process is not seen as being agile, flexible or open enough, particularly when compared to other open source communities,” he said.

Moving Java EE core technologies, reference implementations and its test compatibility kit to an open source foundation will help the company to adopt more agile processes and implement flexible licensing. The change in the governance process is certainly quite important for a widely adopted project like Java EE.

In the official blog post, Delabassee said that Oracle will encourage innovation

by taking a hands-off approach for Java EE. This positive move will benefit the entire Enterprise Java community.

Java EE 8 is yet to launch; the version was originally supposed to be debuted at JavaOne in 2016. However, it has now been suggested that the new Java EE will be released sometime later this year. Oracle’s Delabassee has hinted that specifications of Java EE 8 have almost been completed.