One of the most satisfying things that I've seen personally over the years is the steady growth of the Java EE community, by and large independent of vendors. Today you have so many key folks in the community like Adam Bien, David Blevins, Antonio Goncalves, Markus Eisele, Peter Pilgrim, Arjan Tijms, David Heffelfinger, Josh Juneau, Bauke Scholtz (aka BalusC) and Werner Keil just for starters that publicly advocate for and strongly support Java EE. This is a far cry from the largely vendor driven affair that was J2EE and frankly virtually unimaginable even in the Java EE 5 time period when I first decided to become active in the community myself as an independent. Java EE is most fortunate that many of these folks contribute directly back to the standard through JCP expert groups.
To this list of prominent names I am very happy to add another - Rudy De Busscher and his newly formed Java EE Squad. Don't let the name fool you - as Rudy explains in the blog entry linked, the squad isn't about contention or an antagonism to anything in particular. In fact that would be against the true spirit of Java EE that is open, inclusive, pluralistic and supportive of an ecosystem that may take any form it wishes while advancing the goals of choice, vendor-neutrality, stability, ease-of-use and compatibility though an open community standard.
The goal of the squad is most benign and community friendly - to educate through presentations, courses, articles and blogs from a small group of contributors. Perhaps it makes sense for you to even explore joining the group and adding to the growing voice of the Java EE community?
As the group marches forward we will highlight them here just as we highlight the many other parts of the community.
