GRENOBLE, France and FOREST HILL, Md., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Developers
from ObjectWeb, an international non-profit consortium of government and
businesses focused on development of Open Source middleware technologies, and
the Apache Software Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization also dedicated
to the development of Open Source technologies, have agreed to collaborate to
speed up the availability and certification of their Open Source J2EE (Java 2
Enterprise Edition) application servers. An agreement in principle was
established during the ApacheCon conference in Las Vegas, NV, on November 17,
2003. Today that agreement has been ratified by the release of two middleware
components from ObjectWeb under a new license in order to enable their reuse
by the Apache Software Foundation developers.
OBJECTWEB IRONS OUT LICENSE CONCERNS TO ENABLE COOPERATION WITH APACHE
ObjectWeb and the Apache Software Foundation both work on Open Source
implementations of J2EE, the main standard for Java application servers. Their
projects are respectively named JOnAS and Geronimo. JOnAS has been used in
production for years and currently implements J2EE 1.3 plus some features of
J2EE 1.4. Geronimo is a new project launched on August 6, 2003 and is still in
the Apache "incubator". Both JOnAS and Geronimo aim at being officially
certified as J2EE 1.4 compliant by Sun next year.
While the goals of the ObjectWeb consortium and the Apache Software
Foundation are very similar, they typically release software under different
licenses, the LGPL and the Apache License respectively. While the Apache
License allows ObjectWeb to use Apache code within the LGPL-licensed JOnAS
server, the LGPL did not allow Apache to use ObjectWeb's code under the Apache
License within Geronimo.
Application servers like JOnAS or Geronimo are assemblies of software
components. JOnAS already relies on components developed by the Apache
Software Foundation (e.g. Tomcat, a Java servlet container). ObjectWeb decided
to depart from its licensing policy so to enable in return Geronimo developers
to use some ObjectWeb components. For this reason, JOTM (a Java transaction
manager) and ASM (a Java byte-code manipulation framework) are from now on
distributed under the BSD license, which is compatible with the Apache
License.
Apache Software Foundation Vice-President Geir Magnusson Jr. explained:
"The Geronimo team is very happy to be able to use ObjectWeb components under
the BSD license. 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."
SYNERGIES BETWEEN APACHE AND OBJECTWEB ON J2EE AND BEYOND
The collaboration will speed up both JOnAS and Geronimo evolution. For
ObjectWeb, the uptake of JOTM and ASM by the Apache Software Foundation is a
major recognition by its peers. This will contribute to increase the
industrial adoption of key middleware components on which JOnAS is built. For
Geronimo, the integration of ready-made components will lighten the
development effort as encouraged by the philosophy of Open Source.
On the long term, the development of broad synergies is expected. Apache
and ObjectWeb scopes extend far beyond J2EE and embrace a wide variety of
middleware. The universal adoption of its renowned web server gave a
tremendous momentum to the US-based Apache Software Foundation. As a
consortium hosted in Europe with members all over the planet, ObjectWeb brings
the proven ability to federate multi-cultural projects on a worldwide scale.
ObjectWeb Vice-President Jean-Pierre Laisne declared: "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. Our teams see
themselves more as partners than as competitors even though Geronimo and JOnAS
will definitely remain distinct projects with their own identities. This will
enable professional users to choose between different implementations
providing different tradeoffs for development, deployment and production
purposes. The Apache developers are renowned for their expertise and
efficiency. This is a privilege for us to team up with them. We wish all the
best to this new collaboration."
Apache Software Foundation Board Member Brian Behlendorf states: "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."
ABOUT OBJECTWEB
Founded by Bull, France Telecom and INRIA, ObjectWeb is an international
consortium of leading enterprises and research organizations who have joined
forces to produce next generation of Open Source middleware. ObjectWeb's goal
is to provide Real-Time Enterprises with independent solutions which combine
quality and robustness at the best possible performance/cost ratio. ObjectWeb
targets alternative solutions to proprietary products for e-business, EAI,
data connectivity, grid computing and enterprise messaging. Based on open
standards, ObjectWeb's middleware includes application servers, components,
frameworks and tools. Examples of ObjectWeb's "cost killer" middleware are
JOnAS -- an Open Source implementation of J2EE specification, JORAM JMS -- a
Message Oriented Middleware and Enhydra -- a Java/XML Application Server.
ObjectWeb is hosted by INRIA. To learn more about ObjectWeb, please visit
http://www.objectweb.org .
ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and
financial support for world-class, Open Source, Java, Perl, XML, Tcl, and PHP
projects, in addition to the world's most popular Web server. The membership
driven, non-profit, Foundation exists to ensure that the Apache projects
continue to exist beyond the contributions of individuals, to enable
contributions of intellectual property and financial support, and to provide a
vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in Open Source
projects. For more information, please see http://www.apache.org .
SOURCE ObjectWeb
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Related links:
http://www.objectweb.org
http://www.apache.org
CONTACT:
Francois Letellier of ObjectWeb,
+33-4-76-61-54-87, contact@objectweb.org; Sally Khudairi of The
Apache Software Foundation, +1-617-921-8656, press@apache.org
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