Following the exchange of letters of intent, ObjectWeb and the Apache Software Foundation finally kicked off collaboration on their open source J2EE implementations. With the announcement, ObjectWeb has changed its license for its ASM (byte-code manipulation framework) and JOTM (JTA/JTS) projects, allowing them to be used within the Geronimo appserver.

Geir Magnusson Jr. (ASF): "ASM is a very powerful framework whose use has dramatically improved Geronimo performance. Further, we have very high expectations for JOTM, as it is the Open Source transaction manager which best meets our needs. We are very excited about this new collaboration with ObjectWeb".

Brian Behlendorf (ASF): "This is a great example of how two Open Source communities can work together on a common objective while still retaining their individuality. We don't have to constantly reinvent the wheel just to be different, a trap that software projects frequently fall into. I'm very happy to see the ObjectWeb and Geronimo developers working together."

Jean-Pierre Laisné (ObjectWeb): "Apache and ObjectWeb share the same vision of middleware becoming commodity and in this respect, the advent of certified Open Source J2EE is a must."

Read ObjectWeb and Apache to Team Up on Open Source J2EE.

Excellent!

JOTM
http://jotm.objectweb.org/

I assume that the Tyrex transaction manager project is dead, http://tyrex.sourceforge.net/

Great stuff! Hope to hear something like this in other areas more often (especially in year 2004), like maybe NetBeans and Eclipse? What else? ;-)

Lofi.
http://www.openuss.org

If they are going to share the code why apache is developing another one ?

Its a question of J2EE 1.4 integration rather than reinventing wheels. A J2EE application server is a large complex piece of software - made up of many components. J2EE 1.4 defines a new way to integrate J2EE components and services via JSRs 77 & 88.

The goal of the Geronimo project is to integrate the best of breed BSD licensed open source J2EE software (like tomcat, axis, openejb, mx4j, jetty, jotm etc) to create a BSD licensed, fully certified, J2EE 1.4 container.

Apache already had much of the J2EE stack (e.g. Tomcat, Axis, James etc). There's also a large number of great J2EE projects at ObjectWeb (ASM, JOTM, JOrAM, JOnAS etc).

The Geronimo kernel container is built from the ground up to fully support J2EE 1.4's new platform for integrating & managing J2EE components and services - supporting JSR 77, 88, JMX and JSR 160. Inside this container we should be able to integrate any other J2EE component, whether its Tomcat, Axis, Jetty, openejb, JOTM, JOnAS, JOrAM or any commercial J2EE services (like JMS providers, JCA resources etc).

So Geronimo is trying to form a common base container in which we can deploy other Apache components, ObjectWeb components and services as well as commercial J2EE components and services.

James
Core Developers Network

Sounds like you just took the microkernal base of JBoss and are copying this design, you can already do all of this stuff you speak of in JBoss I think. Don't they have some unified class loader that allows for this kind of integration. Plus full JMX microkernal? Sounds as if personal feeling got in the way of rational thought to me. For someone who speaks of not reinventing the wheel, it seems as if that is exactly what you are doing with your project. Just my opinion, keep up the work, maybe we will get some innovation out of this. That is what I hope, innovation, not immitation...

> this design, you can already do all of this stuff you speak of in JBoss
> I think. Don't they have some unified class loader that allows for this
> kind of integration. Plus full JMX microkernal? Sounds as if personal
> feeling got in the way of rational thought to me. For someone who speaks
> of not reinventing the wheel, it seems as if that is exactly what you are
> doing with your project.

Precisely.

... the signal from ASF is getting weaker and weaker every day ...

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/12/02/december_2003_web_server_survey.html

Yes , ASF is near to dissapear ;-)

ASF is going to stay..But it came very late into open App Server market. It will be a good idea to supoort JOnAS instead of developing the new one.

Well, they can not just take JBoss for reasons beaten to death in these forums already. Nor can they take Jonas, but since the nice people at ObjectWeb are relicensing some of their code under BSD-license, they can save a lot of duplicate work.

> and are copying this design, you can already do all of this stuff you speak of in JBoss I think.

Well Arun, if you were to actually look at the Geronimo code you would see that its architecture bears more similarity to PicoContainer - it is all about Inversion of Control rather than Control.

The intention has been to build in from the start the support for management (JSR77) and deployment (JSR88) that other containers needed to bolt on afterward (with questionable success).

Geronimo is interested in collaboration with other open source projects on both technical and community fronts - initially Apache, OpenEJB, mx4j and Jetty, now ObjectWeb, and others are in progress. This has lead to several innovations already and will lead to more in the future.

James
Core Developers Network

> > and are copying this design, you can already do all of this stuff you speak of in JBoss I think.
>
> Well Arun, if you were to actually look at the Geronimo code you would see that its architecture bears more similarity to PicoContainer - it is all about Inversion of Control rather than Control.

Nice, so you took their work too?
>
> The intention has been to build in from the start the support for management (JSR77) and deployment (JSR88) that other containers needed to bolt on afterward (with questionable success).
>
> Geronimo is interested in collaboration with other open source projects on both technical and community fronts - initially Apache, OpenEJB, mx4j and Jetty, now ObjectWeb, and others are in progress. This has lead to several innovations already and will lead to more in the future.

One bug happy loving family how cute.
>
> James

Arun,

>> Well Arun, if you were to actually look at the Geronimo code you would
>> see that its architecture bears more similarity to PicoContainer - it
>> is all about Inversion of Control rather than Control.

>Nice, so you took their work too?

James is a committer on PicoContainer. (I'm the co-lead with Aslak Hellesoy). There is no code taken from PicoContainer that is in Geronimo. Pico is almost APIless, there is nothing to steal.

FWIW, my Nirvana is Apache, OpenEJB, mx4j, Jetty, ObjectWeb, *any/all* components coded in the type-3 way, with wrappers for JSR77/88 and other framework-heavy designs.

- Paul

We're all allowed to dream of our own *personal* little heaven, aren't we? ;-)

Juergen

"Arun Patel": Nice, so you took their work too?
"Arun Patel": One bug happy loving family how cute.

A google for "Arun Patel" and JBoss turns up only TheServerSide.com. Yet on TheServerSide.com, "Arun Patel" chimes in extraordinarily positively on each and every JBoss thread. Same with "Hans Helmut". And the latest clever pseudonym, "C R" (I couldn't find anybody associated with JBoss with those initials.) Unfortunately, it has long been claimed (by those formerly associated with JBG) that JBG employees were encouraged to use this exact approach (posting under false names, pretending to be actual users) to tilt discussions in their favor, so seeing this type of behavior only reinforces all the other sordid claims that go along with the original claim.

Who knows, maybe one of these pseudonyms is actually a real person. Arun, if you're real, gee, I'm sorry, and I'll buy you a beer sometime. Unfortunately, now I'm starting to doubt every post in which someone says anything positive about JBoss. Or any product for that matter.

Sincerely,

Frank Bean

Wow...are you really...*THE* Frank Bean?

Best,
Petulia Stonk

Posted By: Arun Patel on December 10, 2003 @ 07:58 AM
>> Well Arun, if you were to actually look at the Geronimo code you would see that >> its architecture bears more similarity to PicoContainer - it is all about
>> Inversion of Control rather than Control.
>
> Nice, so you took their work too?

Arun (or is it really Hans?),

Do you actually understand what open source is? It is not a virus that
infects a company and attaches their bank balance to yours.

It is donations by dedicated programmers to the public commons of code
and knowledge.

The whole idea is that open source developers *want* others to use their code
code, either in the original form or in a derived form. I just don't
understand all this angst about code reuse, design reuse or code forking.
So long as the original license of the code is respected, then all of these
actions *are* the explicit intent of the licenses the code has been released
under!

Is the Geronimo team planning to use ObjectWeb ASM?

The Apache Software Foundation already has a similar project, BCEL

  http://jakarta.apache.org/bcel/

>
> The Apache Software Foundation already has a similar project, BCEL
>


http://nagoya.apache.org/eyebrowse/ReadMsg?listName=geronimo-dev at incubator dot apache dot org&msgId=1110336

>
> The Apache Software Foundation already has a similar project, BCEL
>   http://jakarta.apache.org/bcel/

If they didn't, they probably should. Performaance comparison given in ASM overiew is self explanatory. I also believe that Geronimo could use cglib codebase (if license allows) to save time on reimplementing of such transformers.

> >
> > The Apache Software Foundation already has a similar project, BCEL
> >   http://jakarta.apache.org/bcel/
>
> If they didn't, they probably should.
> Performaance comparison given in ASM overiew is self explanatory.
> I also believe that Geronimo could use cglib codebase (if license allows)
> to save time on reimplementing of such transformers.

We already do, see the kernel dependencies :)

James
Core Developers Network

Does JOTM handle nested transactions? I remember reading something about it doesn't.. but it might be obsolete news ofc.