Is Java's future Cloudy?

Cloud computing has its problems — hype being one of the biggest. Poorly defined and different interpretations of what "cloud computing" actually means aren't helping matters, but if you're one of the people at the coal face — developers having to produce applications that run on a cloud service — your biggest problem is a complete lack of consistency in application programming interfaces.

Having to cope with multiple APIs isn't a new problem in programming ("the wonderful thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from"), so it has already occurred to some people that it needs addressing for cloud computing sooner rather than later. The Java community in particular is eager to get things fixed.

Sun Microsystems' open source czar, Simon Phipps, raised the issue in his blog, prompted in part by Google adding Java support to AppEngine, but also by his experiences in the early days of Java. Back then, standardising Java Standard Edition and Java Enterprise Edition helped developers be sure of what APIs they could expect to be available on which platforms. In those days, Java wasn't open source and Sun wasn't in the process of being acquired by a company whose open source credentials are in doubt, so if that standardisation was important then, it's doubly important now.

There is some concern about the how the process of standardisation will be handled, though. Geir Magnusson of the Apache Software Foundation has commented that the ASF's own efforts to produce a free Java implementation under a different licence to the GPL haven't been helped by the Java Community Process. Magnusson also believes it may be too early for cloud computing to standardise, but is willing to give it a go based on more than one implementation of a Java-based cloud service.

I don't think a new, Oracle-owned Sun should lead the process of creating Java Cloud Edition if it wants the standard to have credibility and acceptance. Developers are going to be wary of the new entity at first, particularly if Oracle is seen to be backing away from Sun's previous wholehearted commitment to open source. Having Google or the ASF lead the project would be a great way to revive interest in the JCP, and a good indication that Sun's new owners aren't going to undo several years of hard work gaining developers' trust.