What does this mean? It means that Portlets are just about complete; the review process for a JSR will last 30 days, which means we can expect the JSR to be a final specification in August or September.
Sun also released a PortletBuilder plugin for the Sun ONE Studio IDE that allows developers to build, run, debug, and deploy portlets, a whitepapers on developing Portlets, including four samples (weather portlet, bookmark portlet, notepad portlet, and a time/date portlet). Sun ONE Portal Server 6.2 will be released around the same time with full support for the Portlet API.
WSRP adds the potential to use remote portlets in a given portal container, such that portlets no longer have to be homed in the same Web application, or even the same server. WSRP support will be included in Sun ONE Portal Server 6.3, tentatively due in 1Q, 2004.
The release of the portlet API can be a huge advantage for Java developers, as it means Java can be used as a true enterprise portal solution without extra hoops, given WSRP's acceptance. When WSRP support is common, Java containers can be used to run portals aggregating content without proxies from multiple servers, distributing load and commoditizing not only the portlets themselves, but the portlet services. Check out the specification and send any comments to jsr-168-interest@sun.com.