The Jakarta EE Working Group, hosted by the Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source software foundations, today announced during the JakartaOne Livestream virtual conference the release of the Jakarta EE 9 Platform and Web Profile specifications and related TCKs. This release provides a new baseline for the evolution and innovation of enterprise Java technologies under an open, vendor-neutral, community-driven process.
The Jakarta EE community has taken the important and necessary step on the road to further innovation using cloud native technologies for Java by completing the transition from the use of the javax.* package namespace to jakarta.* in a well-defined, consistent and uniform manner. By doing so, the Jakarta EE 9 release gives enterprises and developers a truly open platform for developing standardized enterprise applications in Java that serve as a foundation for future innovations.
“This simple namespace change belies the strategic importance of Jakarta EE 9 and what it means for the ongoing transition to cloud native enterprise Java,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “Thanks to the hard work of the contributors, committers, project leads, and Foundation staff that made delivering the Jakarta EE 9 specifications possible, the ecosystem is now on a path to build new innovations into Jakarta EE 10 that reflect the cloud native era critical to the future of our industry.”
This namespace change firmly establishes Jakarta EE 9 as a foundation on which cloud-era innovations can be built for future Java infrastructure. What’s more, Jakarta EE 9 enables enterprise end users and enterprise software vendors to migrate from older, previous versions to newer cloud native tools, products, and platforms. Overall, Jakarta EE lowers the barrier of entry to new vendors and implementations to achieve compatibility with this new specification.
With upwards of 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500 running enterprise Java apps in production, the Jakarta EE 9 specifications give new life to this massive installed base. The specifications were developed under the Jakarta EE Specification Process, which replaces the Java Community Process (JCP) for Java EE.
In addition to the release of the Jakarta EE 9 specifications, the Eclipse Foundation is announcing the certification of Eclipse GlassFish 6.0.0, as well as the following solutions working on compliance for 2021:
As attention is turned to Jakarta EE 10, the Jakarta EE community welcomes contributions and participation by all interested parties. To learn more and to participate, all are welcome to connect with the global community at the following page: https://jakarta.ee/connect/.
Companies for whom enterprise Java is important to their strategies can join the Jakarta EE Working Group. Membership in the working group allows enterprises and other organizations to support the sustainability of the community, participate in marketing programs, and engage directly with the community. Learn more about the benefits and advantages of membership here: https://jakarta.ee/membership/.
“With the release of Jakarta EE 9, the community has delivered a solid platform for cloud-native innovation. I am very excited about the future of enterprise Java,” said IBM VP of App Platform and Integration, Melissa Modjeski. “Open Liberty and WebSphere Liberty are well on the way to certification as Jakarta EE 9 compatible implementations and I look forward to continued collaboration, growth and adoption of the open-source Cloud Native Java specifications at the Eclipse Foundation through the Jakarta EE and MicroProfile projects.”
“The Jakarta EE project is constantly introducing new improvements and we are committed to instantly implementing these updates via Jelastic PaaS across a network of service providers to meet the needs of the Java community.” said Ruslan Synytsky, Jelastic CEO and co-founder. “This namespace migration will open the doors to the upcoming features, enhancements and other major updates we can expect going forward. Jelastic’s fast adoption of these changes will make this functionality cloud-friendly, scalable and easily available to our extensive global user community.”
“Java developers have advocated for over a decade for Java EE to become a truly open and free standard for enterprise Java,” said Martijn Verburg, Director of the London Java Community and Java Champion. “With the move of Java EE technology to the Eclipse Foundation as Jakarta EE and the subsequent release of Jakarta EE 9 we now have that wish fulfilled! As the end users, our voice is critical and we are excited to see the pace of innovation increase as well as having their direct input into designs that work for us at the coal face.”
“Oracle joined the Jakarta EE Working Group to help create an open, vendor-neutral process for Enterprise Cloud Native Java standards, and our hopes have been realized,” said Tom Snyder, VP of engineering, Enterprise Cloud Native Java. “Jakarta EE 9 is the result of a broad collaboration across community meWe mbers to create a platform for future innovation. Oracle will continue to support Jakarta EE technologies in Oracle WebLogic Server and in Helidon, and will continue to support the evolution of Jakarta EE technologies in the future.”
“Congratulations to everyone on the release of Jakarta EE 9,” said Steve Millidge, CEO and co-founder of Payara. “Jakarta EE 9 has been a huge collaborative effort by many individuals and companies and marks the beginning of the new Jakarta EE 9 namespace. The namespace is a breaking change, however Payara are collaborating to build a set of rules to transform Jakarta EE 8 applications to the Jakarta EE 9 namespace - a feature we will use in the Payara Platform to deliver backwards compatibility. With Jakarta EE 9 providing a solid, open foundation for future innovation, I’m excited about the future possibilities for enterprise Java. Now is the time for the community to come together at the Eclipse Foundation to drive forward Jakarta EE 10 and beyond.”
“This is a special moment in the development history of the Jakarta EE platform, as this is the first time Jakarta has its own namespace,” said Scott Wang, vice president, software development for Primeton. “In some ways, this feels like we’ve given birth to the ‘real’ Jakarta; one whose future is in the hands of the broader community. We will continue to contribute to this excellent open source enterprise software project, especially in terms of information sharing and expanding awareness of Jakarta EE in China.”
“The Jakarta EE 9 release marks the end of the 3-year transition from Java EE to Jakarta EE and day one of our community’s freedom to innovate,” said David Blevins, founder and CEO, TomiTribe. “Over the next 20 years, every line of community innovation we create will have been built on the foundation laid by Jakarta EE 9. We encourage the community to see Jakarta EE 9 as the marvelous blank sheet of paper it truly is and invite everyone to get their pens ready. It’s time.”
