Sun Microsystems Inc now has some work to do over the next 50 or so days to convince the international standards community that’s intentions are good for the standardization of Java. With 24 of the 27 votes in, the clear majority of the national representatives of countries involved in the technology process of the International Standards Organization (ISO) disapprove of Sun’s initial application to become a submitter of standards. Some 14 of the National Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1), as they are known, have voted no with comments, and there is one abstention – see the full list at the bottom of this story. Sun has until September 17 to reply to the comments, and then the standards bodies of each country have 45 days to revise Sun’s response and then advise the JTC 1 Secretariat if, their yes vote remains yes; their no vote remains no or their no vote is now yes. There is no definite majority required among the JTC1s, it is up to the Secretariat to way up all the submission and provide a summary. The groups are actually voting on Sun’s attempt to become what is know as a submitter of Publicly Available Specifications (PAS). Once and if it achieves PAS submitter status, it can push Java through the ISO process. The 14 that add comments to their disapproval and the 4 that do so to their yes votes, generally have the same concerns. These are: that the JTC 1 groups should be the one maintaining the specifications, not Sun; that Sun should permit use of the Java name in the standard – a trademark issue – and Sun must enable the ISO to push the technology forward without Sun being able to veto changes – an intellectual property issue; and the worry that the ISO is merely being asked to rubber stamp Sun’s technology to give it kudos. The votes were as follows: yes (4): Austria, Japan, Korea, Russia; yes with comments (4): Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand; no with comments (14): Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US. There was one abstention from Canada, and China, Columbia, Egypt and Hungary failed to respond by the ISP’s July 14 ballot deadline, or within the seven day grace period after that.
