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 The job of an Executive Committee (EC) representative
is a serious commitment. The time required is extensive, and includes reading of specifications, Reference Implementations (RIs),
and Technology Compatibility Kits (TCKs), as well as regular attendance at EC meetings and teleconferences to discuss and vote on
various technical and process topics. Besides voting on Java Specification Requests (JSRs) at various stages, the EC guides the
Program Management Office (PMO) in the evolution of the Java Community Process (JCP) program. EC decisions can have significant,
long-term consequences to not only the community, but also in the industry and the market. Still, plenty of JCP participants relish
the task of representing a corporation, non-profit, open source group, or themselves.
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Rebecca Bergersen has designed, developed, and delivered software and
hardware products for more than two decades in the areas of Distributed
Artificial Intelligence, Multimedia, Embedded Systems, Transaction
Systems, and Distributed Object Systems. She is currently a senior
architect at IONA Technologies responsible for defining middleware
standards and their impact on product technical direction. Over the past
six years, Rebecca has worked with Java technology as a user, project
lead, developer, and vendor. Initially, she developed and led critical
parts of IONA's Orbix product, which included complete Java and C++
implementations of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)
standard infrastructure for distributed applications, as well as support
for COBOL and PL/1. Rebecca also helped develop Java technology-based
tools for licensing, installing, deploying, configuring, and managing
the distributed system.
IONA provides standards-compliant middleware in the Java Enterprise
Edition (Java EE), Web Services, and CORBA technologies for more than
4,500 customers worldwide. For more than a decade, IONA has been a world
leader in delivering high-performance integration solutions for Global
2000 IT environments across industries such as manufacturing, financial,
telecommunications, government and defense. IONA pioneered
standards-based integration with its CORBA-based Orbix products. Artix,
IONA's extensible Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), enables existing
enterprise systems to be integrated with an organization's common
infrastructure components. IONA's sponsorship of the ObjectWeb Celtix
open source ESB is a natural extension of the company's history of
solving integration problems by leveraging open standards and
distributed architectures.
IONA has been a leader in the development of such standards, and Rebecca
has represented the company at the highest levels of all associated
standards bodies, including the Object Management Group (OMG), World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS), Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I), and the JCP program. By working with various
standards organizations, IONA is well-positioned to bridge the worlds of
CORBA, Web Services, and Java technology.
"From this participation, we are able to influence industry trends,
increase our visibility in the international marketplace, and have early
access to the technologies being defined and developed, thus enhancing
our products' interoperability with other vendors' products and
increasing their value to our customers," says Rebecca.
OMG controls the majority of the standards IONA implements in its CORBA
product line. Rebecca is IONA's Technical (voting) Representative to the
Object Management Group (OMG), is IONA's alternate on the OMG Board of
Directors, and co-chairs the Middleware And Related Services (MARS)
Platform Task Force, which defines the standard CORBA. IONA has taken a
leadership role in over 30 separate OMG standards in its eleven-year tenure.
Rebecca also participates in technical committees at the W3C and OASIS.
She is an active voting member and contributor to the W3C's Web Services
Addressing and Web Service Description Language (WSDL) Working Groups
and to the OASIS Web Services Reliable Exchange (WS-RX) Technical
Committee. She authored IONA's paper, accepted at the W3C's Workshop on
Web Services Constraints and Capabilities ("the policy workshop"), at
which she made an impassioned argument for the preservation of a simple
declarative model that has served the CORBA and Java EE communities so well.
IONA has been an elected member of the JCP SE/EE Executive Committee
since 2000. Rebecca became active in the JCP program three years later,
when she was appointed to represent IONA on the Executive Committee.
IONA chose Rebecca primarily because of her technical background and
leadership experience in various standards bodies. "This multifarious
experience allows me to bridge the major middleware standards and to
provide IONA the opportunity of influencing the development of standards
as a neutral party. I am passionate about ensuring consistency and
compatibility across the CORBA, Java, and Web Services worlds," Rebecca
says. She voted on 91 out of 93 ballots during her tenure, missing a
vote only when she was ill.
IONA contributed to over 40 JSRs, and Rebecca supervises IONA's current
participation on twelve of those, while serving personally as an Expert on:
JSR 215 Java Community Process version 2.6
JSR 261 Java API for XML-based Web Services Addressing (JAX-WSA)
JSR 265 API for Utilizing Web Services Policy
Rebecca worked closely with Intel and Sun to formulate the procedures
now adopted by the EC for running an EC meeting. She helped evolve the
JCP program to version 2.6, which requires more transparency in the
development process, encourages more community involvement, and helps
move specifications more quickly through the process. Rebecca
participated in the development of numerous important definitions and
decisions about early access to specifications, Reference
Implementations (RIs), and Technology Compatibility Kits (TCKs),
licensing of best practices, licensing terms and conditions for open
source external development, process for termination of non-productive
JSRs, facilitation of liaisons among corporate members and among
standards bodies, feedback of side agreements, and organization of the
Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA).
Despite this laundry list of happy accomplishments, Rebecca sees more
work on the horizon. "I'd particularly like to see the JSPA modified to
provide a set of policies and procedures that fully enable open source
developments to participate in the JCP program as JSRs. Right now the
process is reliant on side agreements and other legal mechanisms to get
around the restrictions on IP flow built into the JSPA," she says.
As an EC member, Rebecca makes it a practice to represent her company's
interests and concerns and to work "honestly and forthrightly" with the
JCP Program Management Office (PMO) and the other companies represented
on the EC. Rebecca says, "Being an EC representative provides me many
opportunities to advise others on ways to involve themselves in the JCP
program or on how they might take advantage of the standards that have
been developed. In this small way, I feel that these practices are
helping to advance the industry." Rebecca feels her participation in
multiple standards bodies cultivates an industry-wide, rather than
narrowly-focused, perspective that is a service to the EC and the
industry as a whole.
Rebecca has lived in several countries in Europe, Africa, and North
America and currently calls the United States home. It will come as no
surprise that she loves to travel and experience other cultures. Jazz,
blues, and international music play a big part in her life, as do
literary pursuits. Rebecca holds a master's in Linguistics from Northern
Illinois University. Wildlife and nature photography satisfy her need to
be outdoors and away from the cities where she works and resides.
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