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The standoff between Sun Microsystems Inc. and The JBoss Group LLC over Java 2 Enterprise Edition compatibility continues, with both sides pointing fingers.
Although both Sun and JBoss had signaled a willingness to come to terms on the issue of J2EE compliance, “its a bit stalled and [Sun is] back to stonewalling us,” said Marc Fleury, president of Atlanta-based JBoss Group.
Sun has claimed that JBoss, the maker of the open-source JBoss Java application server, is trading off the J2EE name without having passed certification as compliant based on a suite of J2EE compliance tests.
Sun brought the issue of JBoss J2EE compliance to the fore in March, saying JBoss is competing unfairly with the rest of the J2EE community by selling its product without getting certified and was at risk of splitting the Java community.
Fleury said his attempts to resolve the issue have gone nowhere. “I called to set up a meeting during JavaOne [June 10-13 in San Francisco], and theyre back to stonewalling me. Its difficult,” said Fleury, a former Sun engineer, noting that licensing the text suite is expensive. “Its expensive [in cost], and its very expensive peoplewise,” he said. “And our customers dont care.”
A source at Sun said the test suite costs “five figures,” but that Sun has offered JBoss one of the best deals the company has ever offered on the suite.
“We signed a nondisclosure agreement with Sun about this whole thing, and then Sun went to the press,” Fleury said. “We dont want to negotiate this in the press.”
Yet Fleury said he thinks the two sides will work out the issue. “Eventually well get it and well pass the certification,” he said.
A Sun spokesperson was not available for an official comment.
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Meanwhile, during the same week as the JavaOne conference, JBoss Group will hold its own JBoss user conference at a venue on the same block as the Moscone Center, where JavaOne is being held.
On June 11, JBoss will hold its second annual developer conference, known as JBoss Two, where the company will focus on the next version of its application server, JBoss 4.0, and on the JBoss aspect-oriented framework. Fleury said JBoss is pressing heavily into aspect-oriented programming (AOP), and Gregor Kiczales, co-founder of Intentional Software Inc., of Bellevue, Wash., known as the father of AOP, will be discussing the technology. AOP enables issues that run across a software system to be programmed in modular units.
JBoss Two will follow the San Francisco version of JBoss boot camp, which will run the weekend before JavaOne. JBoss boot camp is an in-depth training event that focuses on all major aspects of JBoss programming and the JBoss platform. The JBoss Web site said all the organizations primary developers will be on hand for the San Francisco event.
Other speakers at the JBoss Two event include Dean Wampler, a senior product manager at IBMs Rational division; Shigeru Chiba, a computer science professor at the Tokyo Technical Institute; and Bill Burke, chief architect of the JBoss Group.
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