The second milestone of Apache Geronimo has been released. More of the foundation is now supported, such as: EAR deployment, EJB 2.1 Message Driven beans, and EJB 2.1 Timers. There are also other features such as: Hot deployment of EJB, WAR, and RAR archives, JACC (JSR 115) authorization, and JAAS.

View the Release Notes

Download Geronimo 1.0 M2

EOM

Why did they choose not to use Tomcat?

-Joshua

Why did they choose not to use Apache Tomcat?

We did not not choose to use Apache Tomcat. Several of the contributors to Geronimo are Jetty developers including Jules Gosnell who wrote the web integration between JBoss and Jetty, so starting with Jetty was the easitest path for us. Since, we have a fully servlet engine the Geronimo developers have decided to focus (for the time being) on completeing missing features.

Rest assured we will have a full Apache Tomcat integration. This is open source, so if Apache Tomcat integration is important to you, roll up your sleves and give us a hand.

-dain

I still prefer Tomcat.

In my opinion, the idea Geronimo should be a pure EJB container without servlet container, it would be able to run standalone. Then Tomcat serves as a standalone web container. Adding or modifying several configuration files to each side will enable both containers work together. If a lot of class files have to be modified for Tomcat (or Jetty), then it is not a good integration.

I still prefer Tomcat. In my opinion, the idea Geronimo should be a pure EJB container without servlet container, it would be able to run standalone.

You lost me. Geronimo uses OpenEJB, which is just an EJB container that can run standalone or be embedded.

Regardless, there is a little more to J2EE than just servlets and ejb, which is what Geronimo is for. Unified security, transactions, classloading, configuration, ear deployment, and resource sharing just to name a few.

Joshua White :

Why did they choose not to use Tomcat?-Joshua

I'd like to re-iterate that the only reason that Apache Tomcat isn't there is simply based on resources. Some of the founders of Geronimo were/are part of the Jetty project, so their natural inclination was to first do Jetty. We will certainly offer Apache Tomcat with Geronimo.

As my friend Jon Stevens used to say "Thanks for volunteering!"

:)

-geir

Why did they choose not to use Tomcat?-Joshua

From the JBoss website:

JBoss Inc. employs the leading developers and controls the critical mass of knowledge for a number of Java-based open source Projects including JBoss Application Server, JBoss AOP, JBoss Cache, Hibernate, Tomcat, Nukes, JGroups, JBoss IDE, Javassist, and JBossMail.

CONTROLS THE CRITICAL MASS OF KNOWLEDGE???
I don't know about Geronimo developers, but using a product (in this case Tomcat) that is "controlled" (aka, the guys who work on it are paid - controlled) by a company who has persons like Marc Fleury behind, etc.. really scares me...

So I tried Jetty and I liked it and I'm a happy Jetty user now!!. Since I start using Spring I don't use EJB's often now, but I'm looking forward to try Geronimo for the projects that need things like EJB's, JCA, etc..

I like Jetty very much and I think its a safer move for Geronimo to start with Jetty (off course, Tomcat support will follow.

Pedro Costa

So I tried Jetty and I liked it and I'm a happy Jetty user now!!. Since I start using Spring I don't use EJB's often now, but I'm looking forward to try Geronimo for the projects that need things like EJB's, JCA, etc..I like Jetty very much and I think its a safer move for Geronimo to start with Jetty (off course, Tomcat support will follow.Pedro Costa

I agree, Jetty rocks. Incidentally Geronimo has some early integration with Spring. Ultimately we want to be able to auto-deploy any Spring services directly into Geronimo so that you can use the light weight & RAD Spring way to develop, then in production when you need hot-swap, managability and enterprise scaling & clustering features then you can just drop your Spring services straight into Geronimo. Its early days but I think the combination of Geronimo and Spring is a going to be fun.

James
Protique
Enteprise Open Source Solutions

Ultimately we want to be able to auto-deploy any Spring services directly into Geronimo so that you can use the light weight & RAD Spring way to develop, then in production when you need hot-swap, managability and enterprise scaling & clustering features then you can just drop your Spring services straight into Geronimo.

This can't be true :-)

Ultimately we want to be able to auto-deploy any Spring services directly into Geronimo so that you can use the light weight & RAD Spring way to develop, then in production when you need hot-swap, managability and enterprise scaling & clustering features then you can just drop your Spring services straight into Geronimo.

This can't be true :-)

Why not? Like most of IT, use the right tool for the job.

James
Protique
Enteprise Open Source Solutions

Why not? Like most of IT, use the right tool for the job.James

Because this is too good to be true :-)

Why not? Like most of IT, use the right tool for the job.James

Because this is too good to be true :-)

:)

James
Protique
Enteprise Open Source Solutions

Ultimately we want to be able to auto-deploy any Spring services directly into Geronimo so that you can use the light weight & RAD Spring way to develop, then in production when you need hot-swap, managability and enterprise scaling & clustering features then you can just drop your Spring services straight into Geronimo.

This sounds nice to me. I thought Spring's goal is to allow you to develop “enterprise” application without dependency to “enterprise” stuff in J2EE.

Oh Geronimo, if you can make this happen, I would be very happy. I would even prefer you do this first. I am not saying not another J2EE.

This can't be true :-)

Bad idea or what? You care to explain?

"I don't know about Geronimo developers, but using a product (in this case Tomcat) that is "controlled" (aka, the guys who work on it are paid - controlled) by a company who has persons like Marc Fleury behind, etc.. really scares me..."

JBoss employs one of the key Tomcat developers, Remy Maucherat, but to leap from that to saying Tomcat is controlled by JBoss is wrong. The Tomcat team is large and diverse, and Tomcat is not controlled by any single person or company. Further, I'd argue that (as with most OSS projects) the "critical mass of knowledge" is the source code and it's available to the public, not controlled by anyone.

So you're over-reacting by a long shot with the above statement ;)

I assume this is because Tomcat has strongly associated itself with JBoss. Quite naturally Geronimo wants to be far away from the JBoss project as possible. Jetty is a natural choice.

Sincerely,
Markus

I assume this is because Tomcat has strongly associated itself with JBoss.

I think you have that a bit backwards. JBoss ships Tomcat, not the other way around. For that matter, a half-dozen other J2EE containers also ship Tomcat, including the reference implementation and Borland's app server.

Quite naturally Geronimo wants to be far away from the JBoss project as possible.

That seems to be true. It is safe to say that there is little love lost there. On the other hand, in the end JBoss will probably benefit from Geronimo, because Geronimo is truly open source and JBoss developers can use whatever parts of Geronimo that they want to. In the meantime, JBoss is the only J2EE certified open source app server that I know of besides the reference implementation.

As for your implication that Geronimo would avoid Tomcat: Tomcat is Apache. Geronimo is Apache. Geronimo isn't avoiding Tomcat. They just haven't done the integration work yet.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Shared Memories for J2EE Clusters

I assume this is because Tomcat has strongly associated itself with JBoss. Quite naturally Geronimo wants to be far away from the JBoss project as possible. Jetty is a natural choice.Sincerely,Markus

JBoss has associated itself with Tomcat, not the other way around. JBoss attempts to piggy back on well-known projects and at times representing that it owns those projects. But it's just marketing, not reality.

Get a recovery log, then we'll talk.

I assume this is because Tomcat has strongly associated itself with JBoss. Quite naturally Geronimo wants to be far away from the JBoss project as possible. Jetty is a natural choice.Sincerely,Markus

JBoss has associated itself with Tomcat, not the other way around. JBoss attempts to piggy back on well-known projects and at times representing that it owns those projects. But it's just marketing, not reality.Get a recovery log, then we'll talk.

Totally agreed. TX logging is a defining feature of an enterprise server.

Geronimo does TX logging now using the ObjectWeb HOWL logger, which is an incredible piece of software. With HOWL, we can log all TX boundaries and use the data to perform recovery at server startup. Pretty cool.

Just to point out as well, HOWL is a great example of Apache and ObjectWeb working together. The project was launched the week after ApacheCon 2003. The ObjectWeb guys and us were chatting after our "work together" BoF and the question "does JOTM do TX logging" came up. The answer was, no. This would have been license to compete for most people, but it was clear to us that the JOTM guys were the perfect people to write it as they were involved developing the very first mainframes at Bull.

So, they got started and we patiently waited. Now Geronimo, ActiveMQ, and JOnAS all have TX logging and recovery. Everyone except JBoss really.

David:

Now Geronimo, ActiveMQ, and JOnAS all have TX logging and recovery. Everyone except JBoss really.

.. but JBoss can use HOWL as well, correct? If it's Apache licensed, they can just grab it and put it in JBoss too, so it's just a matter of wiring work (like Geronimo supporting Tomcat.)

After all, that's one of the benefits of open source, yes?

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Shared Memories for J2EE Clusters

David:

Now Geronimo, ActiveMQ, and JOnAS all have TX logging and recovery. Everyone except JBoss really.

.. but JBoss can use HOWL as well, correct? If it's Apache licensed, they can just grab it and put it in JBoss too, so it's just a matter of wiring work (like Geronimo supporting Tomcat.)After all, that's one of the benefits of open source, yes?

Right, it's there for everyone. Unlike the Geronimo/Tomcat thing, JBoss doesn't already have a TX logger w/ recovery. I don't know what is stopping them from using it.

I don't know what is stopping them from using it.

Could it be... maybe... ego?

I don't know what is stopping them from using it.

Could it be... maybe... ego?

They are probably waiting to first set up a synergistic marketing agreement so that HOWL can be called JBoss HOWL and they can make it sound as if they wrote it ;-)

All jokes aside, we saw in the past week how some JBoss people don't believe XA is necessary. So they are just not going after that market.

BTW, does JBoss have TCP/IP multiplexing now? How about Geronimo? Last time I asked the question about the recovery log they started a whole thread ...

BTW, does JBoss have TCP/IP multiplexing now? How about Geronimo?

The answer for Geronimo is yes and no. Yes, we have TCP/IP multiplexing code, but no it is not used everywhere. When we get a chance, we will convert all of our code over to a using a common IO layer that supports this.

-dain

Markus :

I assume this is because Tomcat has strongly associated itself with JBoss. Quite naturally Geronimo wants to be far away from the JBoss project as possible. Jetty is a natural choice.Sincerely,Markus

Interesting theory, but it's more probable that Apache Tomcat is a very popular and widely adopted servlet container (as well as being the RI) under the open Apache License, so it was a natural and easy choice for JBoss to offer it. Their users simply demanded it.

As for Geronimo, it's simply that we haven't gotten around to it yet. If you're interested in seeing it, please come and help us. We're going to do it, and more help will make it happen sooner.

- geir