Version 6 of Java Enterprise Edition has finally been approved! But the vote from the Java Community Process experts committee was not unanimous, and with headlines like “Java EE 6 meets with muted approval,” you’d assume that some of the voting organizations have serious problems with the spec, right?Ha ha, of course not, because JCP voting is now well-established as a way to complain about the state of Java in general. There were twelve yes votes, one nay, two abstentions, and one company that simply didn’t vote. The only technical gripe seems to have actually come from one of the yes votes, IBM, which wasn’t completely satisfied with the dependency injection model in the spec. IBM also isn’t happy with the whole long-running compatibility kit drama, which caused the Apache Software Foundation to cast the sole No vote, though they took pains to say that this vote should in no way be seen as a reflection of the technical merits of the proposal. SAP also jumped on this train, abstaining over TCK licensing issues; I assume that this is the latest step in their newfound crusade to liberate Java. Intel abstained because “We were not satisfied with some of the information accompanying this ballot”, but has “no technical issues. It’s a good spec.”And one company — SpringSource — just didn’t vote! Who can say why? Perhaps Rod Johnson sees no revolution in the cards and has simply lost interest. Software Development