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Learn about some of the changes in the upcoming Java 9 release, expected in Fall 2016. The release is currently in an early stage and a list of features compiled from the list of JEPs is available online. This is a starting point for testing whether Java 9 will affect your code. Make sure to check the list of added, changed, removed functionalities. There are suggestions about how to best test your code against Java 9.

Check out how you can be more involved and participate in Adopt OpenJDK. This community program will get you started whether you want to attend an OpenJDK testing workshop, run your own event, just learn more about the technology or provide feedback. Visit Adopt OpenJDK.

Congratulations to the new Java Champion Sven Reimers!

Sven is based near Lake Constance in Germany, and works as a systems engineer at Airbus Defence and Space. He has more than 15 years of experience building complex software systems, and more than 14 years experience with Java. In 2009, Sven was the winner of the Duke's Choice Award in the Network Solutions category for ND SatCom Satellite Communication Management Software.

Besides his day job, his contributions to NetBeans got him elected to the NetBeans Dream Team in 2008. He is a community leader for NetBeans, a founder of the Java User Group in Bodensee and a contributor to OpenJFX. Sven has been very active as a public speaker at multiple conferences, events, JUGs all over the world. e.g. JavaOne (SF/Brasil), SvJUG, JayDay, NetBeans Days, JFokus, and JCrete.

He is an active contributor and participant at the Hackergarten events. In the interview below, Heather VanCura interviews Sven and Andres Almiray at Devoxx 2014 

Java Champions are an exclusive group of passionate Java technology and community leaders who are community-nominated and selected under a project sponsored by Oracle. Learn more about Java Champions.

The OpenJDK Governing Board, which oversees the structure and operation of the OpenJDK Community, has elected two At-Large Members: Andrew Haley and Doug Lea. Both were previously serving as at At-Large members and began new one-year terms on April 1.

Andrew Haley, of Red Hat, wrote in his candidate statement that his goal is to “stand up for freedom and steer the governing board toward helping people who crank out code to get their job done.”

Lea, of SUNY Oswego, wrote that he hoped “to continue my role as an advocate for continuing improvements in OpenJDK processes and mechanisms, especially as they impact the academic, research, and individual contributor communities.”

The OpenJDK Governing Board oversees the structure and operation of the OpenJDK Community. It has two At-Large Members who serve for a term of one calendar year, nominally starting on the first day of April each year.

The annual Free Open-Source Developers' European Meeting took place last weekend in Belgium. The free event brought together 5,000 hackers from the open source community. There were 477 speakers and 488 sessions with a mix of keynotes, lightning talks, certification exams and developer rooms talks.

Tasha Carl, Java architect and the leader of the Brussels Java user group, wrote a blog about FOSDEM and the Free Java developer room. She mentioned Java talks and posted pictures making you feel as if you were there. "The Free Java dev room at FOSDEM is since many years the biggest OpenJDK meet-up around. You can not only see, but really high-five celebrities like – this year – Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, Sean Coffey, Oracle JDK engineer and maintainer of OpenJDK 7u, Steve Poole, developer and evangelist working since ever  for IBM on the JVM, Simon Phipps, Andrew Haley, Charles Nutter, JRuby lead developer speaking about InvokeDynamic,…" she commented.

In another blog, Mani mentioned that "the OpenJDK topic has got massive coverage with 17 speakers, speaking and holding events covering various topics." Java community leaders including Martijn Verburg and Ben Evans were involved in the Java track. In addition to Brussels JUG, members of LJC JUG, CEJUG and others participated at the event.

In her blog, Heather VanCura shares the Java Community Process (JCP) presentation titled "JCP State of the Nation and Future Directions," as well as links to JCP.Next and the community program Adopt-a-JSR programs.

Recent changes to the Java Community Process (JCP) program "focus on the way the organization itself is structured and organized" explained Patrick in this interview.  The changes will result from the implementation of three Java Specification Requests (JSRs). The first JSR, the JSR 348, makes the process more open and transparent to facilitate developers' participation. It was released a year ago and Heather witnessed increased transparency in projects,  additional participation and a simplified release process. "They are using public issue trackers and public discussion alias on projects. More people from the community are commenting and participating in the JSRs. The process of releasing final and maintenance releases is more agile," she commented.

She explained the different options for developers' participation in the JCP. Java user groups may become JCP members at no charge and contribute as a group. Individuals and user groups can contribute to the community initiative Adopt-A-JSR. Developers can give feedback on the transparency of a JSR process. Individuals, corporations and non-profit organizations (JUGs for example) can join the JCP. They then can comment on specs, join an expert group and become a spec lead

Information about the JCP program is available at jcp.org. Watch the recent presentation about Adopt-a-JSR with Martin Verburg and Java EE 7 JSR projects with Arun Gupta

In this Interview, Marcus Lagergren, who works on the dynamic language team at Oracle, discussed the Nashorn project.  "Nashorn is the JavaScript runtime based on InvokeDynamic for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)" he explains. The Nashorn project is now part of the OpenJDK

The performance is much better than its predecessor Rhino. "We totally blow it out of the water now that we have specific tools to run other things than Java on the JVM." Marcus commented. "The pluggability between JavaScript and Java is another good thing" he added.

His Devoxx talk about Nashorn is now freely accessible at Nashorn - implementing dynamic languages on the JVM
Marcus Lagergren's twitter handle is @lagergren. Nashorn blog has the latest on the project