I have discussed this action with the expert group and they have 
agreed that this is appropriate given the current circumstances 
outlined in the note sent to the group on 3/31 and attached here.

  "Now that JSRs 207 and 208 have been approved by the EC, it is time for
  us to decide what the appropriate action should be on JSR 159.

  Originally, the goal of JSR 159 was to extend the existing J2EE
  component models to be more composable using a port based messaging
  model. As things progressed in the web service space, it became clear
  that web services were on the path to deliver this functionality.

  With J2EE 1.4, both servlets and EJBs can implement WSDL ports and use
  WSDL ports. This has effectively overlaid a universal, message based
  composition model over J2EE components.

  JSR 207 will now take over the extension of this model to include the
  control flow, state management, compensation, and sync-asynch merger
  that is needed for stateful web services in general and business
  processes in particular.

  JSR 208 will define a WSDL based communications model that will be the
  core of a J2EE environment. This WSDL based model will be used to
  loosely couple coarse grained 'components' within a service as well as
  communicate with external services. A unified view that merges
  components and services was an original goal of 159.

  I believe the combination of J2EE 1.4 web service support with JSRs 
  207 and 208 will accomplish the original goals of 159 in a way that is 
  more in concert with web services standards. Therefore, I'm recommending
  that we terminate JSR 159."