The fourth of the Modular Java series covers declarative modularity. It describes how components can be declaratively defined and wired together, without having a code dependency on OSGi APIs.

As Oracle has been prone to do for the past nine months, company officials Tuesday pledged a strong commitment to Java technology. They even offered glimpses of a modular future for the platform.

Java will need modularity and multitenancy to work in the cloud, says a Red Hat engineer.

Beyond Java EE 6, modularity will be key, according to the Oracle officials. OSGi, meanwhile, plays an important part of the Java ecosystem and Java platform overall, Harris said.