Eclipse foundation releases updates on its Jakarta EE Rights to Java trademarks

Last week, Eclipse Foundation made an announcement about regarding an update on Jakarta EE Rights to Java Trademarks. This announcement also gives an update on the complex and confidential negotiations between the Eclipse Foundation and Oracle, which includes a summary of all the progress till date and the implications of the agreement and use of Java trademarks and the javax namespace.

In 2017, Oracle announced the migration of Java EE to the Eclipse Foundation. However, the process has been slow and constant. The mutual intention of the Eclipse Foundation and the Oracle team was to allow the evolution of the javax package namespace in Jakarta EE specifications. Unfortunately, they could not reach a mutual agreement on the same.

Read More: Jakarta EE: Past, Present, and Future

It has now been decided that the javax package namespace and the Java trademarks such as the existing specification names cannot be evolved or used by the Jakarta EE community. This is believed to be the best possible outcome for the community by the Eclipse Foundation and Oracle.

In its official post, Eclipse Foundation states that Oracle’s Java trademarks are the property of Oracle only. Hence, the Eclipse Foundation has no rights to use them. They have further mentioned some implications including:

• The javax package namespace may be used within Jakarta EE specifications but may be used “as is” only. No modification to the javax package namespace is permitted within Jakarta EE component specifications. Jakarta EE specifications that continue to use the javax package namespace must remain TCK compatible with the corresponding Java EE specifications.
• Jakarta EE component specifications using the javax package namespace may be omitted entirely from future Jakarta EE Platform specifications.
• Specification names must be changed from a “Java EE” naming convention to a “Jakarta EE” naming convention. This includes acronyms such as EJB, JPA or JAX-RS.

Additionally, any specification which uses the javax namespace will continue to carry the certification and container requirements which Java EE has had in the past.

Also, the Jakarta EE Working Group along with Oracle will continue to work on the Jakarta EE 8 specification and is looking forward to future versions of the Jakarta EE specifications. The team is also sure that many application servers will be certified as Jakarta EE 8 compatible. After Jakarta EE 8, the main aim of Jakarta EE 9 will be to maximize compatibility for future versions which will help in not suppressing any innovation.

There have been mixed reactions to this announcement. Some feel that this is a great change towards openness and avoids confusion, whereas others believe that lawyers of tech companies are making it difficult for software to get developed.

A Reddit user has commented, “With these changes, it is more likely that developer would stop using it and switch to other frameworks.”

To know more about this news in detail, visit The Eclipse Foundation’s official blog post.

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