| From: "Geir Magnusson Jr." <geirm@optonline.net> |
| Date: Tue Aug 5, 2003 11:41:18 AM America/New_York |
| To: general@incubator.apache.org |
| Subject: [PROPOSAL] An Apache J2EE server project |
| Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org |
| |
| Proposal for an Apache J2EE server project |
| ========================================== |
| |
| 05 Aug 2003 : Geir Magnusson Jr., James Strachan and Richard Monson-Haefel |
| |
| Section 0 : Rationale |
| --------------------- |
| |
| The Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform is employed widely by |
| organizations implementing enterprise applications. It is commonly used in |
| business-to-consumer and most recently in Web service deployments. Most of |
| the largest business organizations today have deployed applications on a |
| J2EE platform. |
| |
| While the J2EE specification is implemented by a number of large and small |
| vendors, there is no open source J2EE container available with a BSD or |
| BSD-derived licence nor is there an open source project today that provides |
| a fully compliant implementation. Verifiable compliance with the J2EE |
| specification is important to business because it ensures that applications |
| deployed by developers are portable and interoperable across J2EE providers. |
| As a result organizations large and small have felt compelled to pay |
| thousands of dollars to commercial vendors in order to deploy applications |
| based on J2EE compliant servers. |
| |
| The Apache foundation supports several projects that implement pieces of the |
| J2EE platform such as Servlets, JSP, Tag Libraries, and a Web services |
| stack. However, Apache does not currently support a J2EE project. |
| |
| The aim of the project is to produce a large and healthy community of J2EE |
| developers tasked with the development of an open source, certified J2EE |
| server which is ASF licensed and passes Sun's TCK reusing the best ASF/BSD |
| licensed code available today and adding new code to complete the J2EE |
| stack. |
| |
| |
| Section 0.1 : criteria |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| We feel that this project has a good chance for success as the following |
| project aspects are carefully considered : |
| |
| a) Meritocracy: The project will be meritocratic - the usual Apache |
| meritocracy rules would apply. |
| |
| b) Community: The user community for this project is potentially massive. |
| The initial developer community for this project consists of developers from |
| Apache, Castor, JBoss, mx4j, and OpenEJB projects. The aim is for this |
| community to grow considerably once this project goes public. |
| |
| c) Core Developers: The initial developers are listed below and consist of |
| some existing Apache committers together with committers from Castor, |
| JBoss, mx4j and OpenEJB. We believe that as the project grows, the modular |
| nature of the J2EE stack will require steady expansion of the committer |
| group that is considered 'core' - thus providing a healthier, more robust |
| developer community. |
| |
| d) Alignment: There is clear alignment with many existing Apache projects. |
| From Jakarta projects such as Tomcat, James and log4j initially as well as |
| possibly others along the way. J2EE now includes a web services stack and so |
| there will be some alignment with the WS project, Axis in particular, along |
| with the reuse of several XML projects. In addition the J2EE Server project |
| may reuse other ASF/BSD licensed code which is not currently hosted in |
| source form at Apache such as (at time of writing) mx4j, openjms and tyrex. |
| |
| However we see the J2EE Server project as a separate project to existing |
| Apache projects, serving two primary roles |
| |
| * integration of various existing and new code bases into a J2EE stack, |
| with those codebases existing both inside and outside of the project |
| * certification of the J2EE stack |
| |
| Note that the J2EE server project can happily support competition within the |
| J2EE services stack (for example, offering choices for elements such as the |
| servlet engine like Tomcat or Jetty, or some new JTA implementation versus |
| Tyrex or some new JMS implementation versus OpenJMS etc). |
| |
| |
| Section 0.2 : warning signs |
| ---------------------------- |
| We feel that this project has a good chance for success as the following |
| warning signs do not apply to the project we are proposing : |
| |
| a) Orphaned products: This project is starting with a new code base together |
| with reusing lots of the currently available high quality J2EE open source |
| code out there which is ASF/BSD licensed. |
| |
| b) Inexperience with open source: The initial community is made up of |
| existing Apache, Castor, JBoss, mx4j , and OpenEJB committers. |
| |
| c) Homogeneous developers: The current list of committers represents |
| developers from various backgrounds and open source projects, employed by |
| various companies and based around the globe in the US, Europe, Asia and |
| Australia. There will be no majority bloc, at least from the start. |
| |
| d) Reliance on salaried developers: None of the initial developers are |
| currently paid to work on the J2EE project. |
| |
| e) No ties to other Apache products: The J2EE Server project is |
| complementary to existing technologies at Apache. Indeed it will integrate |
| many of those technologies in an effort to provide a code base that can be |
| J2EE certified according to the JCP process. |
| |
| f) A fascination with the Apache brand: The committers are interested in |
| developing a healthy open source community around an ASF/BSD licensed J2EE |
| certified server, whether Apache is the right place or not. The aspects of |
| Apache that attract this effort are the experienced stewardship of open |
| source projects by the ASF, the non-profit status of the ASF for TCK |
| certification, and the existing Java community that has been a longstanding |
| part of the ASF. |
| |
| |
| Section 1 : scope of the project |
| -------------------------------- |
| |
| There are two main aspects to this Apache project : |
| |
| * a complete J2EE certified server which is fully ASF/BSD licensed and |
| backed by a healthy open source community. |
| |
| * to create a fully modular J2EE stack so that the Apache community can use |
| whichever parts of the J2EE stack they require separate from the J2EE server |
| project. |
| |
| |
| Section 2 : initial source from which the project is to be populated |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| There are several potential initial contributions. Upon formation of the |
| project our first action will be an open, public call for contribution and |
| comment from the J2EE community. Because of recent circumstances in the |
| J2EE OSS community, all code proposed for inclusion must be publicly |
| reviewed and open to public comment. |
| |
| |
| Section 3: identify the ASF resources to be created |
| ---------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| Section 3.1 : mailing lists |
| |
| * geronimo-dev |
| * geronimo-user |
| |
| |
| Section 3.2: CVS repositories |
| |
| * geronimo |
| |
| |
| Section 3.3: Bugzilla |
| |
| * geronimo |
| |
| Though would there be an issue with using JIRA? |
| |
| |
| Section 4: identify the initial set of committers |
| ------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| The committers are listed below, along with the open source project(s) where |
| they also have commit privileges. |
| |
| * Bruce Snyder (Castor JDO) |
| * Dain Sundstrom (JBoss) |
| * David Blevins (OpenEJB) |
| * David Jencks (JBoss) |
| * Geir Magnusson Jr. (Apache) |
| * Greg Wilkins (JBoss/Jetty) |
| * James Strachan (Apache) |
| * Jan Bartel (JBoss/Jetty) |
| * Jason Dillon (JBoss) |
| * Jeremy Boynes (JBoss) |
| * Jim Jagielski (Apache) |
| * Jules Golsnell (JBoss/Jetty) |
| * Richard Monson-Haefel (OpenEJB) |
| * Remigio Chirino (JBoss) |
| * Simone Bordet (mx4j) |
| |
| |
| Section 5: identify apache sponsoring individual |
| ------------------------------------------------ |
| |
| * Ceki Gülcü |
| * Geir Magnusson Jr. |
| * James Strachan |
| * Jim Jagielski |
| |
| |