JW Soapbox is a community forum for talking about what matters in Java-based software development today. In this first Soapbox column, PrettyFaces author and OcpSoft Principal Lincoln Baxter III reflects on his experience of getting involved with JSR 314: JavaServer Faces 2.0.
A lot has changed since May 15, 2001, when the first JSF ballot review of the JSF 1.0 framework was just beginning. JSF to this day -- Sun's flagship Web-application framework -- has been an uncompromising box of tricks and gotchas, with little community adoption. This has been mostly due to its relatively developer-unfriendly nature; however, the second phase is coming, and with JSF 2.0 peeking out from the edge of its nest, a new life is beginning to show.
From the start, JSF had mixed support from the community, with opposition from major players like IBM, HP, and the Apache Foundation. Apache voiced strong concerns with the new JSF, because of "Sun's current position that JSRs may not be independently implemented under an open source license." In addition, they saw "little value in recreating a technology [Struts] in a closed environment that is already available in an open environment."
Apache's concerns drew several other players to vote against JSF, but the final vote still passed with a 10-5 margin (Accenture abstained from voting). With the voting complete a short two weeks later, the first JSF expert group was formed.
