"wolfc" wrote : Given those rules an entity drawn from a xpc and directly refered (from a field) by a SFSB must act as I said. JPA 3.2.4 says serializing an entity "may result" in a detached entity; it doesn't say it must. So, seems to me we have flexibility. That said, a developer wanting to write a portable app would need to assume the container is going to detach the entity, since some vendors might. I take it the way an app developer would handle that would be to do a merge of all entities in the @PostActivate callback, correct? anonymous wrote : Why would you want to keep managed entities around? Assuming the idea here is this is supposed to resemble pojo programming as much as possible, why would an app developer not want to? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4078946#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...