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Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:51:14 -0400
From: Jim Hurley <Jim.Hurley@Sun.COM>
Subject: Re: Jini?
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Thanks, Mark, for following up with some of the thinking.

I am unclear on what the process is... can someone shed some
light?  As far as the naming goes:
   - how can we determine if the "Jini" name is acceptable to Apache?
   - whether contributing the TM would be welcomed?
   - whether use of "Jini" by other community sites, etc would be
     acceptable?

We're anxious to get going, but the path we must take is unclear
to us.

Thanks for any help.

-Jim


On Aug 8, 2006, at 6:29 AM, Mark Brouwer wrote:
> Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>
>> I know changing the name is a *really* tough thing for Jini.  
>> However, is
>> Jini a *technology* or an *implementation*? If its the prior I'm  
>> afraid
>> our current guidelines are not to do technology names.
>
> I understand for those not very involved with the Jini Technology  
> it is
> hard to pinpoint what Jini exactly is and why some of us are  
> willing to
> go through great lengths to take this name with us, so let me try.
>
> First Jini is a Technology, but with an extra handicap as the borders
> where Jini begins and ends are not very well defined, even while in
> 1999/2000 there was already a document that described the Jini
> Architecture and the Jini Technology Core Platform. It just lacks a
> clear definition, when you ask 10 people to describe Jini chances are
> high that you will get 10 different answers; some that will make you
> happy or smile, and some that make you foam with rage ...
>
> Many consider the implementation of Sun JTSK (Jini Technology Starter
> Kit) as being 'Jini' but this is not correct (if you would ask me) and
> while the proposal mainly centers around their code the proposal also
> includes another Jini Community Approved Standard, namely ServiceUI  
> (the
> other trademark involved).
>
> What is part of this proposal are most of the Jini Community Approved
> Standards and the IMHO 'sad' thing is that the Jini Decision Process
> that ratified these specifications as community approved standards
> ceased to exist. Sun is no longer willing to provide the Executive to
> run the process and there are not enough people in the community that
> want to take it over (read don't want to spend time on it). The  
> current
> owner of the Standards also doesn't believe they can get accepted  
> as JSR
> in the JCP based on experience with some of the specifications that
> ended up as Jini Standard while they should have become J2SE
> specifications in the first place. The net result is that some really
> important Jini Community aspects [1] (the Standards) we all circle
> around are part of this proposal, and if we can stay clear of forks it
> should be seen as the foundation on top of which the rest of the Jini
> community will build their own stuff.
>
> [1] as Jim mentioned the new http://jini.org/ is another aspect of the
> community and is there for everything one could see as Jini related
> (really open ended), http://jini.dev.java.net/ should be seen as the
> yellow pages with regard to Jini related development projects and news
> around that.
>
> Renaming the Technology itself would be suicidal in my opinion as  
> there
> are dozens of people/companies that develop products/specifications on
> top of 'Jini' so it would be harming them too. Of course it would be
> possible to give the TLP a different name, but then again almost every
> sentence would have a reference to the Jini Technology for which I  
> guess
> nobody could say where the 'Jini Technology' itself lives. Given the
> fact the ASF project would be closest to defining the 'Jini  
> Technology'
> I think it is good to emphasize this by the name of the TLP.
>
> IANAL and have no idea what the impact would be of handing over the  
> Jini
> trademark to the ASF, how the ASF will deal with other communities  
> that
> have Jini in their name, or other specifications that have Jini in  
> their
> name. I'm reluctant to say this given the fact that Sun has to protect
> its trademarks, but I have the feeling that Jini has become rather
> generic in the past years. People say I wrote a Jini service, I
> developed a Jini Service Container, I do Jini, it is the Jini way,  
> etc.
> I also don't understand the implications of abandoning the trademark
> itself, but I would like to see that Jini can be used in the future as
> it is today, even when it makes your mouth foam.
>
> To summarize as *I* see it at this very moment:
>
>   - Jini is not a product.
>   - Jini can't be used as a noun.
>   - Jini in combination with another noun could serve as a  
> specification
>     name for which one can have multiple implementations, such as
>     'Jini Helper and Utility Classes', 'Jini Platform',
>     'Jini Service Container', etc.
>   - the deliverables of an Apache Jini TLP should get their own  
> distinct
>     name without Jini in it, except when it represent a 'Jini ...
>     Specification'.
>   - Jini itself only represents the magic of doing distributed  
> computing
>     in a proper way and comes in a lamp, these are already hard to  
> find
>     these days so please don't make it even harder :-)
>
> I would like to know whether people object against using Jini as name
> for a TLP based on the above reasoning. I think for the discussion it
> would be handy to tackle the appropriateness of the name first  
> before we
> deal with legal issues, as I guess that most people here have the  
> IANAL
> prefix, just like me.
> -- 
> Mark
>
>
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