IBM Corp’s Greg Bollella says he expects a specification for real-time Java to be out for public review by year-end. Bollella is leading the expert group charged with developing specifications for real-time extensions to Java under Sun Microsystems Inc’s community development process model. Sun could hardly have picked one of its own without provoking another storm of controversy over its control of Java. Bollella insists the group starts with a clean slate but points to the collection of real-time Java work which has already been undertaken by various industry groups and organizations as a useful starting point for discussion. 30 companies are represented in the group including Aonix, Nortel, Microware, QNX, Rockwell Collins, Lockheed, Wind River Thomson-CSF, Mitsubishi, Apogee, Cyberonix, and Sun itself. Eight engineers with Java and real-time expertise will devote half their time to the work and meet once every two weeks. A further dozen engineers have been committed to help development of the spec.
