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Microsoft joins Jakarta EE, MicroProfile Working Groups at Eclipse Foundation

A portent of the End Times, or simply a smart corporate move? Probably the latter

Microsoft has signed up to the open source Eclipse Foundation Jakarta EE and MicroProfile working groups as an Enterprise and Corporate member.

For Jakarta EE, this means Microsoft joins the same tier as the likes of Red Hat, while others (such as Oracle and IBM) sit at the strategic member table.

The move should not come as a surprise, even when readers consider the somewhat problematic relationship Microsoft had with Java and open-source decades ago. Things are a little different now and, as The Register columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols opined this very week, Microsoft is a Linux and open-source company these days.

As with so many things in the orbit of Redmond, the driving factor behind the move is Azure. "Microsoft has made substantial investments in offerings for Java, Jakarta EE, MicroProfile, and Spring technologies on Azure," explained the Windows vendor before listing all the friends it has made on the way to bringing Java EE, Jakarta EE, and MicroProfile services to Azure. Red Hat, IBM, VMware, and even Oracle all received a nod.

With so much investment already poured in, the next logical step was a place on the working groups. Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, said: "We're thrilled to have an organization with the influence and reach of Microsoft joining the Jakarta EE Working Group.

"Microsoft has warmly embraced all things Java across its product and service portfolio, particularly Azure. Its enterprise customers can be confident that they will be actively participating in the further evolution of the Jakarta EE specifications which are defining enterprise Java for today's cloud-native world."

"Warmly embraced," indeed. A short hop verbally, but a huge leap in corporate mindset from the "embrace and extend" of years past. There will be many developers still slightly nauseous following the antics of the previous century where lawsuits flew and Microsoft stirred from a seeming slumber to invest heavily in the likes of .NET and C#. Java has, however, had the last laugh considering the importance placed on it in recent years by Microsoft. In 2021, a preview of the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK was announced.

"We believe our experience with running Java workloads in the cloud will be valuable to the working groups," said Microsoft of its sign-up, "and we look forward to building a strong future for Java together with our customers, partners, and the community." ®

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