An open standard like Java EE involves a lot of hard work from a lot of different groups of people. The hard work of these people, largely selflessly, benefit countless Java developers. For specification leads the work in the JCP is often far beyond just a job. I have seen the same to be true of many vendor experts on a specification. Especially admirable are the independents that contribute to specifications largely on their own time as well as Adopt-a-JSR participants. The annual Java Community Process awards is a small way of recognizing some of these great people and their work. There are four different awards:

JCP member or participant of the year

Outstanding specification lead

Most significant JSR

Outstanding Adopt-a-JSR participant

The following are the nominations I had personally made for this year's awards (in no particular order):

Josh Juneau (for outstanding Adopt-a-JSR participant)

Arjan Tijms (for JCP member of the year)



Adam Bien (for JCP member of the year)

David Blevins (for JCP member of the year)

Ivar Grimstad (for JCP member of the year)

Antoine Sabot-Durand (for outstanding specification lead)

Manfred Riem and Santiago Pericas-Geertsen jointly (for outstanding specification lead)

CDI 2 (for most significant JSR)

MVC 1.0 (for most significant JSR)

The winners of the JCP awards were announced in a lavish party during JavaOne 2015. I am happy to see that one of my nominations - Adam Bien - won this year and the others were strong contenders. I am also happy to see the other winners - Anatole Tresch (for outstanding specification lead), JSR 363 - Units of Measurement API (for most significant JSR) and Rajmahendra Hegde/JUG Chennai (for outstanding Adopt-a-JSR participant). In particular JUG Chennai has long been a strong supporter for Java EE through the Adopt-a-JSR program. I would encourage you to read a bit about the winners and all of the nominees. It's no surprise Java EE has a strong showing in the nominations. These are all true Java heroes in my book. All the details are posted on jcp.org for you to take a look at.