Are the JSRs working for the 'public'?

Question

Part of the JCP/JSR review process is a 'public' draft, where anyone can comment on it. Comments on this are then supposed to lead to possible changes in the reference implementation followed up by a final draft and a final acceptance.
1.5 (tiger) is supposed to be released this summer. And JSR 201 which includes autoboxing and a lot of other stuff ( http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=201 ) is in that. There is a beta (or alpha) program right now for 1.5. Yet 201 is not in the review stage yet. That isn't too unexpected given that they have to work the kinks out. I suspect it just isn't done yet.
However, it does make me wonder what point the 'public review' serves. I doubt that by the time it is released that any comment, other than perhaps documentation changes, will be incorporated. It simply will be too late.
I have reason to believe that at least one other JSR will end up being handled in the same way.
Does anyone else have reason to believe that comments received during a public review of any JSR in 1.5 would result in either a major or even minor change?

Answer 1

To be honest, I am not sure. I considered joining the
JAI experts group (A long while back). It did not
appear to be free. At the very least it requires you
have funding available to attend meetings and work on
the proposals (which tends to limit contributors to
those working for supportive companies). That may
have just been JAI though.In the past it cost - I looked into joining as well.
What I looked at a couple of days ago says there is no cost to join.
I don't know if they have on-site meetings. I figured most of it was electronic.
>
JSR's are evaluated by SUN as to whether they will
provide market share/utility/cost/detrement/whatever
for SUN. If
it does not satisfy thier criteria it does not happen.
(Many JSR's are additional/optional packages so they
don't
generally have these problems). Represenatives and
proposals from larger companies (who
are heavily invested in java) do tend to get more
attention (which is not surprising) especially when it
comes
to changes to critical parts of java.
Interesting point.
The JSR process does not include that (or at least it specifically seems to not be that way) but that doesn't mean that Sun has to implement any JSR. However, as far as I know they have implemented everyone that impacted the JVM/API directly.
>
All in all I've found that if you have a good point
then it will be considered. However, it is often the
case
that it is a good point which has already been made.
I don't know why 1.5 additions have not been opened
for public comment. (Are you sure they haven't
already?)
I am sure that the one I listed has not.