(Assuming you are talking about C++) Currently we are doing the development in our internal code base so we can't accept external contributions. The plan is to have it open-sourced this quarter. Thanks for offering help though.

Java has a similar timeline to C++, whereas the initial release of objective-c and javanano will not have JSON support. For ruby, I think JSON is already supported.

@xfxyjwf wondering if your timelines on JSON encoding is still holding true?

@vanvlack, JSON support for C++ is added. See: https://github.com/google/protobuf/blob/master/src/google/protobuf/util/json_util.h
We may add some more convenient methods to make it easier to use.

For Java, I'm working on it right now and it should be ready soon.

For Java, I'm working on it right now and it should be ready soon.

Great news @xfxyjwf. Is it possible to define ready soon? Like is that days, weeks, months?

What solution do you recommend while we're waiting for JSON support in Java? Preferably something that requires minimum of changes when the JSON support gets released.

@xfxyjwf Do you have a sense of when JSON support in Java might be available?

@IceMan81 check out this JsonFormat class:
https://github.com/google/protobuf/blob/beta-1/java/util/src/main/java/com/google/protobuf/util/JsonFormat.java

It's in the beta-1 branch. We will merge it back to master soon. A binary package "protobuf-java-util" is also available on maven now:
http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.google.protobuf/protobuf-java-util/3.0.0-beta-1

Is this the solution that will be supported in the future or will protobuffer objects get something convenient like a .toJson() method? (And possibly a version of the method that takes a Writer or similar).

I'd really like that convenience.

In C++ and Java, it will not be added to the message interface but will be kept as separate utility functions/classes. This is due to dependency restrictions in our internal code base (we cannot make the Message interface depend on the JSON util).

In other languages though, it might be possible to make it part of the message interface so you can call toJson on a proto object directly. It needs to be decided per language though.

@xfxyjwf I'm going to ask a stupid question: what is the restriction? License? Not wanting to depend on some external library?

Re @borud , the restrictions are from how we manage the layout of our internal code bases. It's not related to license or external dependencies.