Java Community Process
The Java Community Process (JCP) was introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1998. Its primary goal was to engage the greater Java community in the process of developing and revising Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The process is currently at version 2.6 (http://jcp.org/en/procedures/jcp2).
The JCP works by bringing together a group of experts in the subject area, under the guidance of a technical specification lead to not only develop or revise a specification, but also to build a reference implementation as well as a technology compatibility kit.
The process starts with the submission of a Java Specification Request (JSR), which either proposes a brand new specification or a significant revision to an existing specification.
An API is the contract that is made by a software package in terms of the functionality that it makes available to the developer. There is an implicit guarantee that APIs can be relied upon to exist for a very long time. You can see...
