In last month's article I wrote about Open Source and Open Standards. This month, having just returned from the QCon conference (http://jaoo.dk/london-2008/conference/) in London, during which I discussed the role of community in the JCP, and particularly the role that individual ("non-corporate") developers could play in the organization, I'd like to address some other aspect of openness: transparency of process and community involvement.

Over the past few months I've met with a broad cross-section of the Java developer community - individual developers, members of the open source community, Java User Groups (http://java.sun.com/community/usergroups/), and Java Champions (https://java-champions.dev.java.net/). While some of these developers belong to the JCP, many do not. This isn't necessarily a sign of failure. If we had 12,000 members rather than the 1,200 that we have today, we wouldn't necessarily be a stronger or more effective organization. Standards work is not for everyone; there's a limit to the number of organizations or individuals who want to or are able to participate. Nevertheless, since we call ourselves the Java Community Process it's important that we are inclusive and representative, that our work is transparent to the whole Java community, and that those who want to participate are able to do so.