Oracle vs. Apache Software Foundation: Absence of Malice (Take 2)

The resignation of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) from the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process (JCP) is giving me a strong feeling of Déjà vu. Oh wait, I know why that is. It is bringing up the same feelings I had when I wrote this earlier blog post about the Oracle lawsuit against Google.

The same scene from the movie Absence of Malice still comes to mind for me. It perfectly captures my sentiments regarding the ASF's resignation from the JCP Executive Committee. The segment I am referring to starts at the 6:16 mark of this YouTube Video.

"Everyone in the room is smart, everybody is just doing their job, and Oracle's reputation as the steward of Java is dead. Who do I see about that?"

The response in the movie pretty much sums up where we are now:

"Ain't nobody to see. I wish there was. You're excused now sir."

My problem is that I don't want to be excused. As one of a select group of Java Champions, I want to stick around. However, I am finding it increasingly difficult to support Oracle as the new steward of Java. In fact, I can state without reservations that I do *NOT* support Oracle's recent actions that led to the ASF's complete withdrawal from the JCP.

My quandary now is what to do about that. Is it better to continue on as a Java Champion and be engaged with Oracle about my concerns with their stewardship of Java? Or is it time to submit my own resignation from the Java Champions community? I can say one thing publicly. The private discussions amongst my fellow Java Champions and our Oracle liaisons brings another movie to mind, Twelve Angry Men. Just like the scenes in that jury deliberation room, there has been a lot of unpleasant discourse about what is happening amongst us in private. I'm at the point that I feel like this one juror does at the 1 minute mark in the movie trailer for Twelve Angry Men.

I doubt that anything can be done to persuade Oracle to change course at this point. I only know that doing nothing about it is not an option for me personally. I am going to ask my fellow Java Champions to join me in endorsing a public statement in support of the ASF's recent decision to withdraw from the JCP (and denouncing the JCP decision not to honor the licensing commitments made to the ASF). If I am unable to get a critical mass of my fellow Java Champions to do so, then it may well be time for me to excuse myself. I hope it doesn't come to that though.

The Most Amazing Thing To Me

Some people would say it is pretty amazing all the volunteer community work I managed to do over the years with Java User Groups (JUG), Google Technology User Groups (GTUG), and Community Leadership Summits while still holding down a full time job as a web developer in Silicon Valley. The most amazing thing to me is that I will start getting paid to do community work as part of the Google Developer Relations Team on December 13, 2010. Or as Steve Martin would say, "the most amazing thing to me is ... I ... get ... paid ... for doing ... this."

I have the dot com bubble burst to thank for getting me started in my developer community efforts. When I escaped the imploding Silicon Valley startup world for a safe haven at VeriSign in 2002, I started the Silicon Valley Web JUG in early 2003 to scratch my own itch simply because I missed hanging out with other Java developers. I had no idea it would lead to me being part of a Global Community of JUG Leaders or that I would be the one creating our JUG Community Map or that I would eventually be selected by my peers to be a Java Champion. Of course, none of that would have happened without the support of Aaron Houston during his tenure supporting the JUGs at Sun or without Kevin Nilson coming on board as my JUG Co-Leader when I was on the verge of volunteer burn out.

I have Chris Schalk to thank for prodding Kevin and me to start the Silicon Valley GTUG. When we held our first GTUG meeting in January of 2008, we had no idea that three years later ours would be the longest running GTUG with 2400+ members. It has been wonderful to see the explosive growth recently in the number of local GTUGs all over the world. Stephanie Liu has done an amazing job supporting the GTUGs over the past two years. I am so looking forward to working with her to keep the GTUG momentum going strong.

Finally, I have Jono Bacon to thank for organizing the first Community Leadership Summit (CLS) in the summer of 2009 and Marsee Henon for putting the bug in my ear to organize the first CLS West in January of 2010. It was my involvement in the main CLS and subsequently in CLS West that made me realize it was time to make the move from software development to working with developer communities for my day job. If you get a natural high from hanging out with other community leaders like I do, then come party with me at our second annual CLS West gathering on January 15th, 2011.

That's All Folks!

JavaOne 2011: The Middle Way Approach

The Middle Way Approach is proposed to peacefully resolve the issues with JavaOne and to bring about stability and co-existence between JavaOne and Oracle OpenWorld based on equality and mutual co-operation. It is inspired by the Dalai Lama's Middle Way Approach for resolving the issue of Tibet. Obviously, our issues with the co-location of JavaOne and Oracle OpenWorld are trivial compared to the issue of Tibet. That in itself will hopefully bring some lightness to dealing with the JavaOne logistical issues. In the grand scheme of things, it is truly not all that significant. Having said that, it still matters a great deal to those of us in the Java development community.

I much prefer a middle way approach rather than the nuclear option (i.e., the community starting their own "J2" conference). The problem as I see it though is the sheer size of Oracle OpenWorld makes it very difficult for JavaOne to co-exist with that event. I do accept the practical necessity to have them in close proximity. However, the use of adjacent hotels for the JavaOne 2010 sessions was a logistical nightmare and dismal failure this year. Since holding a separate JavaOne conference at a different time is a non-starter in discussions with Oracle, I propose here some slight modifications to the current organization of the combined events that I believe would significantly improve the situation.

Instead of relegating all the developer sessions to the hotels, the primary goal of this proposal is to move the developer sessions back to Moscone. The way I propose accomplishing this is by having the JavaOne developer sessions start one day earlier on Saturday and the OpenWorld sessions shift their start/end dates by one day. The old format was:

• User Group Sunday
• Oracle Open World/JavaOne on Monday-Thursday

The new format would be:

• JavaOne on Saturday-Sunday
• User Group Monday
• Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday-Friday

You might be wondering what this really buys us. It would allow JavaOne to move back to Moscone. There will be no competition with OpenWorld during the weekend. So, we can have the technical sessions like in past years in the meeting rooms at Moscone. I also envision a few Java talks of crossover interest being held on the overlapping Tuesday of the two events. Since it will only be a few talks of crossover interest on Tuesday, they can be fit into the overlapped schedule at Moscone on Tuesday. In my personal opinion, being back in Moscone for two full days would be better than the current situation being in the separate hotels for 4 days. Plus, it does retain an overlap between the two events that is important for some of us. With respect to the big appreciation event/party on Wednesday night, that could be a separate additional option you can choose to buy (or not) when you register for JavaOne.

By the way, this would allow Oracle Develop and a new MySQL conference to also move back to Moscone for the weekend. There is plenty of room at Moscone to co-locate all three developer focused conferences. They could follow the same overlapping schedule as JavaOne. I truly believe this is a middle way approach that could work. My biggest logistical fear is that it is already too late to change the Moscone reservation for next year's event to include the additional days required to do this.

As an aside, a JavaOne pass could have the same benefits as the Discover Pass this year did for OpenWorld. That way, JavaOne attendees that choose to hang around could still network with the OpenWorld attendees later in the week.

Namasté, Van

Oracle Lawsuit: Silicon Valley Web JUG Poll

In this unscientific poll of Silicon Valley Web JUG members, we had roughly 14% of the JUG members (171/1202) participate in the poll. The one poll question was in regards to Oracles current Java patent lawsuit against Google. And the answers were:

• Strongly Support Oracle (2)
• Support Oracle (4)
• Don't Really Care (5)
• Support Google (31)
• Strongly Support Google (129)

The poll was open for JUG members only for one week. I have now closed the poll in order to publish the results. In the pie chart below, the For slice represents the total of all the votes in support of Oracle in this lawsuit. The Against slice represent are total of all the votes in support of Google. The Neutral slice represents all the votes from people that don't really care one way or the other about this issue. Click on the chart below to be taken to the raw poll data.

Just to be clear, I realize the opinions of our JUG members have no bearing on the legal action. However, I think it is still useful information. It supports my earlier claims that regardless of whether Oracle is in the right here (not clear at this point), they are paying a heavy price in the public perception arena for their first major action as the new steward of Java.

If their own die hard Java fans like me are not happy about this action, one can only imagine what others that already have a negative opinion of Java make of the current situation. There are two things though that Oracle could do independent of the lawsuit that would immediately dramatically improve their standing with Java enthusiasts such as myself. They simply need to reintroduce and follow through on these two earlier JCP resolutions (which Oracle voted in favor of when Sun was the steward of Java) and truly open source Java as has long been promised.

That's All Folks!

Oracle vs. Google: Absence of Malice

There is a scene from the movie Absence of Malice, that perfectly captures my sentiments regarding Oracle's complaint against Google for Java patent infringement. The segment I am referring to starts at the 6:16 mark of this YouTube Video.

"Everyone in the room is smart, everybody is just doing their job, and Oracle's reputation as the steward of Java is dead. Who do I see about that?"

The response in the movie pretty much sums up where we are now:

"Ain't nobody to see. I wish there was. You're excused now sir."

My problem is that I don't want to be excused. As one of a select group of Java Champions, I want to stick around. However, I am finding it increasingly difficult to support Oracle as the new steward of Java. There need to be some dramatic changes in the landscape soon or I will take that offer to be excused and withdraw from the Java Champions program.

To call it a Camp or NOT to call it a Camp, That is the Question

At the recent Community Leadership Summit in Portland, Dave Nielsen proposed that regional unconferences be called Community Leadership Camps rather than Community Leadership Summits. The rationale being that the unconference format we use is closely aligned with the "Camp" brand (FooCamp, BarCamp, CloudCamp, etc...). In practice, I don't think people would spell it all out. So, we are really talking about the term CLCamp. This would then lead to qualification of the regional events by geography appended to that. At least, that is how it tends to work for the other branded camps. In our case, that would mean CLCamp West.

My first reaction was a very strong one against this proposal. However, I have since realized that Dave's proposal only pertains to the unconference events and not all the other activities associated with the existing CLS West brand: Ignites, First Fridays, Special Events, etc...

You see, CLS West is not just an unconference. CLS West is a "community" of community leaders here in the bay area that come together in many different ways. This led to the realization that CLS West needs to live on as the umbrella entity associated with our Ignite events, our First Friday dinner gatherings, and special events like the CLS West Karaoke Holiday Party in the works for December of 2010. =)

So, what we are really talking about is the event name for our next unconference gathering here in the bay area. Regardless of the name, the sponsoring entity/organization will be CLS West. With that in mind, the possibilities that I see for the event name are:

• CLS West


• CLSCamp West


• CLCamp West

Personally, I don't have a strong need to associate our unconference event with the "Camp" brand. I believe the advantages of that association are outweighed by the weakening of the association with the "CLS" brand. Which is why my first choice would be to leave it alone and have our main event simply use our umbrella title of CLS West. However, I could live with incorporating the "Camp" brand into the name as long as the "CLS" brand is kept intact. This means I would be okay with CLSCamp West.

What I am strongly opposed to is calling it a CLCamp. This completely removes the "CLS" brand association. For me, the "CLS" brand represents the concept of bringing community builders together in a vendor-neutral environment. It just so happens that the first ever CLS event was an unconference. Through the activities of CLS West over the past 6 months, we have demonstrated that the "CLS" brand as described here can be effectively applied to other event formats too.

So, now you know my opinions on the matter. Although I spearheaded the formation of CLS West and continue to take a leadership role in the community, I realize that I am here to serve the community. The best way to serve the community in this situation is to solicit your input into the final decision. To that end, I have created this simple online poll where everyone that is a member of CLS West can vote and be counted. We will implement the community's decision whatever it may be.

That's All Folks!

Global GTUG Campout: Aug 13-15, 2010

 

GTUG Campout is an annual weekend-long event where Google Technology User Group members have an opportunity to design, develop, and demo a complete application over the course of three days. This year, the theme will be HTML5. The event kicks off on Friday, August 13th, where ideas and teams will come together. Teams will then have the rest of the weekend to build their HTML5 applications before presenting their work to the public on Sunday evening.

Since Meetup Everywhere only allows for one organizer per location, anyone unable to sign up on Meetup Everywhere as an organizer that would like to help can also contact me at this address:

van [at] gtugs [dot] org