The open source version of Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) has been renamed Jakarta EE to satisfy Oracle’s desire to control the “Java” brand.
The renaming became necessary after Oracle moved Java EE to the Eclipse Foundation, a shift it hoped would see developers become more engaged with the project.
But Oracle wouldn’t grant the project the rights to use the Java brand. In February 2017 the Eclipse Foundation conducted a ballot to pick a new name. On offer were the names “Jakarta EE” and “Enterprise Profile”. The vote went in favour of the former, 64.4 percent to 35.6 percent.
One important argument for allowing the libre version to keep the Java name was compatibility, but that didn’t sway Oracle. In January, senior director of product management for WebLogic Will Lyons wrote that while javax package names and namespaces would remain for compatibility, new API technologies would need to adopt the new name.
Other projects will also be rebranded, as shown in the table below.
| Old name | New name |
|---|---|
| Java EE | Jakarta EE |
| Glassfish | Enterprise Glassfish |
| Java Community Process (JCP) | Eclipse EE.next Working Group (EE.next) |
| Oracle development management | Eclipse Enterprise for Java (EE4J) Project Management Committee (PMC) |
Eclipse Foundation executive director Mike Milinkovich wrote that EE.next will next create a compatibility program to give developers permission to use the Jakarta EE trademark.
In the meantime, he wrote, “as of today, it is preferred that when you are generically referring to this open source software platform that you call it Jakarta EE rather than EE4J. EE4J, the Eclipse Top-level project, is the only name we’ve had for a couple of months, but as we at least tried to make clear, that was never intended to be the brand name.”
