I've written about EE4J a few times before and many others have too, particularly on the name. Back in November, Mike from Eclipse announced that we were going to run a community effort to pick a new name for the Java EE brand once it moves to the Eclipse Foundation. We had a lot of great names submitted from the community by the time the input period ended. The next step was to run through various legal, patent and IP processes to determine whether each name was even open for use. Very similar to the processes we had to go through when we renamed JBoss AS7 to WildFly, in fact. That pruned the list dramatically to the point where we now have only a couple of names left as options. Yes of course we could re-open the suggestion box but that's not going to guarantee a different outcome and in the meantime the Java EE brand doesn't move forward. Therefore, that's why as a member of the EE4J PMC I agree with the original timeline of events and we should simply vote on the two renaming names: Jakarta EE and Enterprise Profile.
Now of course given that I was one of the creators of the MicroProfile effort (now Eclipse MicroProfile) you might be forgiven for thinking I'd prefer Enterprise Profile. It has a certain ring to it and in some ways compliments MicroProfile. However, I actually prefer Jakarta EE and here's why:
- clearly it could be abbreviated to JEE, which many in the community have expressed their interest in preserving (even though JEE wasn't an accepted abbreviation of Java EE);
- Jakarta is the largest city on the island of Java - 'nuff said!
- Jakarta also has a good history with the Java language thanks to the Apache Software Foundation;
- Jakarta One has a nice ring to it;
- I know I said the fact it's a city on the island of Java was enough, but if you go and do some research, or especially you live in the area, you'll see that the city is thriving and driving innovation, growth etc. in the region, which are similar things to what we wish to accomplish with EE4J.
So all in all I think Jakarta EE is by far the best choice of the two. And in fact I can't think of a better name now that we've whittled down the list. However, this is a community effort so just remember to cast your vote.
