This amazingly off-the-mark article appeared in The Register yesterday. Dalibor just joined Sun and surely is still getting his bearings and has never participated in the JCP and it's possible he was misquoted by Gavin. As a friend of Dalibor, I've suggested to him that he should get it corrected. As the Apache Software Foundation representative to the JCP EC, I sent the following to the Sun EC reps and chair of the PMO trying to figure out what Sun is up to here :

Patrick, Danny, Calinel :

Given that fact that the statements contained in

    http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/14/jcp_individual_representation/

are given by a Sun employee identifying himself in his job role, can I assume that Sun is interested in taking this discussion public? I think that is a really healthy approach. I think there is confusion about the basic facts and I think clarification will be useful for the community as a whole.

I think I'll wait to see what Sun's intention is here before addressing some of the problems in the article. After all, it could be a just a huge misunderstanding. Why do I care? Because openness, transparency and the equitable "rule of law" is inherent in the ASF's struggle in securing an equitable Java SE TCK license from Sun.

Hopefully Sun will allow me to publish their answer. Not being able to would be supportive of "A culture favoring closed-door meetings" :)