The long awaited stable release of JMonkeyEngine, now version 2.0.1, is officially realeased. Every savvy Java game developer is strongly encouraged to go by our downloads section and check it out.
Before this new release, the Java Monkey Engine reached almost 20’000 downloads. Unfortunately there are no statistics for the number of SVN pulls, but we estimate even greater traffic through these means, as most developers have preferred to use the development version of JME for a long time now. For those not too familiar with JME on-goings, due to some issues in management that originated last year, a 2.0 build of JME labeled ‘stable’ has been long awaited. We have gone from r4093 to r4666 - suffice to say, there’s been some changes. Please see the changelog for details, but keep in mind we’re talking about continuous changes since January here, so there’s bound to be some left outs.
Now it is time to determine some realistic feature goals for JMonkeyEngine 2.1 as a continuously community-driven project. As part of that, we are launching a 3-part survey that aims to accommodate JME development as a whole. We urge every JME enthusiast to dedicate just a couple of minutes to this survey, as it will help strengthen the direction we are currently missing. With clearly defined goals for both 2.1 and 3.0 we should see a boost in streamlined development.
We will introduce the complete core team for JME shortly, which also means we feel the newly established developers team is solid enough to handle new additions soon. We gladly welcome all applications.
I hope anyone following us has been pleased to see the increase of activity in JME as a mere project; an organization if you will. Experimenting with social networking tools such as twitter has been a lot of fun and our newly recovered youtube channel is quickly gaining momentum. If you ever fall back into doubt about JME’s graphical capabilities or its lacking presence in high quality projects, the multitude of videos on this channel should be a powerful reminder. And the best stuff is always yet to come 
Managing an open source project of this scale is still a learning experience for most us, albeit far from entirely unexplored territory. We are consciously investing a great deal of time in learning about and developing the assets that this project surrounds itself with and produce, in the hopes that more and more will see JMonkeyEngine as a highly viable OSS project worth committing to. Any further questions or requests should be made on our forum.
~ Erlend Sogge Heggen