I'm not a member of the EG, so my opinion likely counts for little with
the JCP; but then I've always known this since they prevented
DataNucleus from having access to the (private) JPA TCK years ago.
I concur with Oliver's comments. There is zero (visible) involvement of
Oracle in this "process" and for the JPA spec to be pushed forward,
other people/groups have to take it over if they have the time to do
so. I personally would be unable to contribute to that due to my
opinions on the overall JCP process, and those will never change ;-)
Regarding JPA2.2+, DataNucleus will continue to implement features that
have been raised in JIRA on this site, and any future JPA spec if one
ever comes about. We have actually already implemented several of the
most requested items (java.time, repeatable annotations, assorted API
updates, etc), and additionally have a "provider JPA 2.2 jar" including
some updates. Some may consider this action "bastardising" the JPA
spec, where you have providers own versions of a so-called standard API
jar including things that they support, but then we made it clear back
in JPA 2.0 that delivery of the spec should have provided a *standard*
JPA 2.0 API jar (including on Maven Central) and not rely on providers
having their own (an error subsequently repeated with JPA 2.1).
Regards
Andy (DataNucleus)