User:Peter pilgrim/Java Champions

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Java Champions

Java Champions was originally created by Sun Microsystems, now acquired by Oracle corporation, in order to engage with prominent members of the Java community. The Java Champions program was a part of the Sun Microsystem's Outreach department, originally. The idea was to engage with the leaders of the community in order to communicate corporate message, product announcement as well as allow those leaders to give feedback and advice to Sun Microsystems.

Java_(software_platform) is a language, a Run_time_(computing) and a platform_(computing) that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Official Statement

Java champions are individuals and the whole group exists as non-hierarchical social structure. There are no levels. The Java champion members come from a broad cross-section of the Java community, including:

Java Luminaries, senior developers, architects, consultants; JCP members; etc
Academics/University Professors
Authors of Java-related content (online & print) and industry conference speakers
Community leaders: Java User Group (JUG) Leaders and the leaders of online Java portals

The Java Champions are an exclusive group of passionate Java technology and community leaders who are community-nominated and selected under a project sponsored by Oracle. Java Champions get the opportunity to provide feedback, ideas, and direction that will help Oracle grow the Java Platform. This interchange may be in the form of technical discussions and/or community-building activities with Oracle's Java Development and Developer Program teams.

Selection Criteria

Java Champions nominate new candidates under a closed selection process, which is a private peer review process.

Java Champions are leaders; ideal candidates are leading Java-related projects, JUG communities, or online Java portals.
Java Champions are technical luminaries; the candidate should be a Java engineer or architect who is relatively senior and has lots of experience.
Java Champions are credible; Java Champions may author or publish content that is pro, neutral, or negative toward Oracle (unless there is a litigious issue).
Java Champions are involved with some really cool applications of Java Technology or are involved with some sort of humanitarian or educational effort. The application must be openly available to the Java community (vs. a company-proprietary or government-classified project).
Java Champions are able to evangelize or influence other developers through their own professional activities (via consulting, teaching, writing, speaking, etc.)

Typically, a candidate who decide elects themselves is frown upon. More acceptance comes from member candidates who can demonstrate community appeal, wider innovation and recognition.

Activities

Java Champions provided valuable feedback, criticism and advice to Sun Microsystems. The outreach program typically provided resources and infrastructure for international telephone conference calls. For example in JavaFX 1.0 product and early releases on Java EE 5 and the Java Community Process and other Java related product especially from Sun Microsytems. The conference calls were taking on therefore an ad-hoc basis, and they normally include could include a vice president of engineering, marketing, or a software product manager, or an architect of the platform. The conference call included sometimes a private presentation slide deck for member consumption. The conference calls were not recorded, although some members did take notes, including Aaron Houston (see below).

In 2010, the acquisition of Sun Microsystem by Oracle, brought a sea change and different business model to the scene. In comparison to Sun, Oracle operated by stricter secrets, intellectual property rights, more effective return on investments and one result of this, was the restriction in external communications. There were a sizable number of Java Champions who found that Oracle's low levels and lack of communication to be very disappointed, and this was at the time when confidence in the Java software platform, the innovation in Java and community was being tested by wider general public in IT. The ramifications of this 'difference' in communications style has been felt and is widely seen be a significant 'hurt'.

Under Oracle's reign, the conference telephone calls were still taking place, for instance Richard Bair, architect of the JavaFX 2.0 release for 2011, gave a presentation and web seminar of the early access release in January 2011. It was Oracle's intention, to improve communication with the Java community going forward, they say in a public statement Henrik Staehl Blog entry, this included Java Champions.

TODO: Sources for lack of communication

Founding Java Champions

  * Adam Winer (Founding Member, USA)

Incomplete https://java-champions.dev.java.net/content/corechampions.html

List of Java Champions

  * Adam Winer (USA)
  * Peter Pilgrim
  * Stephen Colebourne

Incomplete https://java-champions.dev.java.net/content/corechampions.html

Key Individuals

Aaron Houston

One of the key individuals of the Java Champions programs at Sun Microsystems from 2005 to 2010 was Aaron Houston, where he was part of the Sun Technology Outreach team. In the United States (North America) such marketing and community activities by Internet and hardware or software product companies can be classified as Technology Evangelism. Aaron Houston was the former Program Coordinator, Community Programs & Technology Outreach, for Sun Microsystems Inc. He very successfully built relationships with other Java champions, JUG (Java User Group) Leaders, internal Sun staff, such as James Gosling, and certain other individuals in the Java community especially in the USA and Europe. Aaron Houston was also the co-organiser of the java.net Community Corner at several JavaOne conferences. After Sun Microsystems was acquired on January 2010, Aaron Houston, left the new corporation, Oracle. He moved to Adobe as one of their Community Managers for Adobe User Groups.

In fact, Java Champion, Peter Pilgrim, remembers, Aaron Houston, handing over the figure-head (point person) responsibility of the outreach community to Oracle, by introducing Justin Kestelyn on a telephone conference call in January 2010. This call was an (in)famous teleconference call well remembered by those Java Champions who dialed in, as it was announced that JavaOne 2010 would be first Java conference co-located with Oracle's own OpenWorld and Oracle Develop simultaneously. The co-located conference did take place in September 2010 in San Francisco, largely in the Hilton Hotel and Nikko Parc 55. Oracle OpenWorld took precedence at the old home of JavaOne during Sun Microsystems reign. This co-location was much to chagrin of tho