FAQ: Is JSR 308 inactive?

[Michael Ernst]

> According to http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=308 the status is
> "inactive"... What does that mean?

(I'm sending the answer to the mailing list, because this is a bit of a
FAQ.)


The short answer is that it doesn't mean anything.

Sun supports JSR 308, and support for JSR 308 appears in OpenJDK (and in
increasing numbers of other Java tools).

People are actively working on both JSR 308 and the Checker Framework. You
can see the change logs at

http://types.cs.washington.edu/jsr308/specification/jsr308-changes.html
http://types.cs.washington.edu/checker-framework/current/changelog-checkers.txt

or a log of the commits at

http://code.google.com/p/jsr308-langtools/source/list
http://code.google.com/p/checker-framework/source/list


Here is the long answer, for people who are curious about the gory
administrative details.

Every JSR is marked as "inactive", no matter what its actual state, if 18
months goes by without an official JCP milestone such as an Early Draft
Review. See http://jcp.org/en/introduction/faq5#10 . The JCP has told me
that they make no exceptions, regardless of the actual state of the JSR,
and regardless of the impression that the "inactive" tag might convey.

To avoid the "inactive" tag, I submitted a second Early Draft Review
document on May 13, 2009, after having appraised the JCP several times of
my intention to do so. The JCP didn't send me a response to the
submission. This is a pattern: on a number of occasions, my emails have
received no response. I'll re-submit for an Early Draft Review at some
point -- maybe even this month, if I find the time -- and that will clear
the "inactive" tag.


In the meanwhile, keep those comments coming -- they help to improve the
specification and the tools!

Thanks,

-Mike