Actually, they publish their standard in a hardcover edition 8).

    http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/index.html

Simply because the standard is owned by a company does not make it any less
of a standard.  Given the fact that many millions of dollars have been
invested by quite large companies to support the standard, both in their
products and in free initiatives, I would say the "change at a CEO's whim"
is not terribly likely, and if it did it would be to plug a security leak.
I would be the first to say that I would feel more comfortable having it be
a public standard, but politically it is possibly not really the best
choice.  The fear that another large software firm would 'corrupt' the
workings is not beyond imagination, considering the $25 mil settlement that
already happened with a private standard!  I don't see any big Microsoft
initiatives (.EMBEDDED?) making comparisons with Ada technology as a chief
rival.

   Simply put, the Java language has plenty of absurd things to contend
with but the standard is hardly one that has stopped multi-billion dollar
companies from investing largely in the technology.  I do appreciate the
feedback, but I have noticed that it is more likely to come on the
political side of posturing rather than the technical side of building
better software. 8).

Tony