JBI déjà vu. I see some parallelism between this JSR and the Java Business Integration (JBI, JSR-208) JSR back in 2005. Instead of building a standard for inte

JBI déjà vu. I see some parallelism between this JSR and the Java Business Integration (JBI, JSR-208) JSR back in 2005. Instead of building a standard for integration, they ended up specifying a standard for interoperability between integration components from different vendors, i.e. a "meta"-integration system (using the same term as the author). The result was a spec that allowed an (a) HTTP adapter from Oracle to exchange data with a (b) File adapter from IBM – through (c) an ESB implemented by TIBCO, for example. Essentially something that nobody would even think of deploying (in the era of proprietary, expensive and lock-in middleware). Obviously the standard was DOA and had very little traction. Not even the JSR members implemented it. The only memorable implementation was Apache ServiceMix, which later transitioned to OSGi, spinning off its kernel as Apache Karaf. In hindsight, the vendors might have acted like trojan horses with JBI, steering the spec into a territory that would be ultimately worthless. The lesson to learn is that commercial vendors don't gain anything by standardising on those elements they consider strategic differentiators (like their module system). EDIT: minor edits for clarity.