It’s interesting to hear that Liferay switched to the LGPL recently.
On top of that, they did the license switch in a way that involved their community (which is a good thing and should be noted by other companies looking to do the same thing). Anyways, there’s interesting discussion in why they did it and also people’s reactions in the comments are always fun to read…
Well, it’s a legitimate detriment to us. Our company has a policy preventing the incorporation of any open source product licensed under GPL or LGPL in any of our products. Irrespective of one’s opinion as to the wisdom or necessity of this, there are many organizations that have similar policies.
Sad that many companies still have this policy…
On a side note, maybe my prediction about the rise of weak copy left licenses has some merit?
As of late, I’ve been helping a couple new Eclipse.org projects prepare for creation and release reviews. As an Eclipse.org project, you have to follow the Eclipse Development Guidelines. A part of that process is doing scheduled reviews when you’re ready to release. To make the review process a bit easier for some folks, I’ve created some unofficial templates on Google Docs you can use (just search Google Doc templates for ‘Eclipse.org‘ and you should find them).
On a side note, if you’re a project lead, a good place is to go to Eclipsepedia for information about the review process.
Hope you find this information useful.
My favorite time of year is about to start soon when it comes to open source development, Eclipse’s involvement with the Google Summer of Code (GSOC) program.
All people involved in the Eclipse community should post their ideas here. It’s a good time to start posting ideas, as students will start looking at mentoring organizations in mid March.
There is little downside in participating in this program in my opinion. As an Eclipse.org GSOC mentor, you get the rewarding opportunity to mentor a student in the ways of Eclipse and open source. As a student, you get Eclipse experience and paid for your contributions!
In the end, the whole open source community benefits.
How exciting to finally have the Equinox and OSGi book done (see the book review from DZone). In the Eclipse community, many people complain about the lack of documentation and reference material, well that should be less of a problem given the book and excellent Toast example.
You can download the first chapter for free (and the 6th chapter).
I may be a bit biased (see the kind words about me in the Acknowledgments section of the book), but I believe this is the most comprehensive book on OSGi out there. The authors have many years of practical OSGi experience, from the days to when OSGi wasn’t cool yet (SMF) to when it became the basis of Eclipse. On top of that, I think the best thing that comes out of this book is the open sourced Toast example. Expect to see a lot us within the Eclipse community use this example when we talk about OSGi, Equinox and EclipseRT.
So what are you waiting for, go buy the book and learn about OSGi.
Are you attending EclipseCon 2010?
Does snacking on all that conference food (think chocolate fountains) make you feel guilty?
Want to improve your 5K time 
?
Well, I have good news. This year, EclipseSource has graciously sponsored the EclipseCon Exercise event. To attend, please register on the wiki and let the event organizers know that you’re coming. This year, we have something special for the runners due to sponsorship, technical tees!
Anyways, I want to continue the tradition of morning exercise during the conference and I hope to see some fresh faces this year in the morning. There really is no better way to start off your morning than running through some fresh California air.
I had one of those “I love Mylyn“ moments today…
Why yes Mylyn, that’s exactly what I wanted to do with that problem (besides banishing it from my workspace).
It’s the little things that make you smile and see how far we’ve come with the IDE experience. It also makes you want to curse those who don’t think there’s a benefit to IDEs.
But seriously, give Mylyn a try if you aren’t using it already. If you don’t know what Mylyn is, watch this webinar.
I recently joined the advisory board for The Open Source Business Resource (OSBR) which is one of my favorite reads when it comes to crossroads of open source and business. I find that when it comes to quality business-related open source material out there, we don’t have many options (or I’m just not aware of them yet). I mean, besides opensource.com, a couple analyst firms and a few interesting blogs, I don’t have much to go on.
In the latest issue of OSBR which targets the mobile industry, there’s one article I really appreciate by Andreas Constantinou which starts off with this revealing quote…
“Open source licenses tell only half the story. The governance model, the implicit rules defining transparency and influence into an open source project, is the small print that determines the power dynamics around that project.”
If you haven’t noticed, the mobile industry is in an open renaissance when it comes to giving people access to source and allowing them to contribute via a variety of levels. For those who had the pleasure to work in mobile in the past, this is a bit shocking given how the industry previously treated access to mobile operating system source. The important part of the article is when it starts mapping open source license types to governance models (see the fairly accurate figure below). And discusses how the mobile industry needs less marketing hype around the benefits of openness, but more education and clarity on governance models.
See where Eclipse fits in (it’s snuggling next to Symbian)? Do people like it there ?
Just because Android says they are open, doesn’t necessarily mean they are when it comes to governance. Anyways, give the latest OSBR issue a read if the mobile industry is your cup of tea. If you want to see anything in upcoming issues, like a potential theme covered, please let me know.
I’ve been having some problems with my computer hardware as of late. From my MacBook Pro needing a new mainboard last week ($350) to my iPhone dying ($199… apparently water damage… which I claim shenanigans on… iPhones now ship with moisture indicators which can void your warranty in a heart beat… I’ll paint mine white next time). Now, it seems my MacBook Pro is making funny clicking noises occasionally and causing my applications to slow down a bit. I believe it’s an omen…
Hardware failures are frustrating. Back in the day, we had a !@#$ing TURBO button.
Alright, maybe it didn’t fix much, however, it felt good to press it.
Take note hardware manufacturers.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve helped plan and organize a panel at EclipseCon called The Future of Application Servers.
In the past few years, application servers have been evolving rapidly and with the advent of OSGi leaking into application servers, we are seeing modularity being introduced to the typical application developer. The main goals of the panel is to explore what application servers may look like in the future and how application server programming models may evolve. The panel will feature leaders from their respective application server communities… from Eclipse Virgo (dmServer) to IBM Websphere:
- Glyn Normington (VMWare/SpringSource)
- Graham Charters (IBM)
- Rich Sharples (JBoss/Red Hat)
- Mike Lehmann (Oracle)
- Greg Wilkins (webtide)
John R. Rymer from Forrester Research will be moderating the panel.
If you’re interested in the future of application servers, swing by and attend EclipseCon!
In the past month, there’s been a lot of new Eclipse.org project proposals…
If anything looks interesting, feel free to give the projects feedback as they go through the Eclipse Development Process. Personally, I’m looking forward to the logo of the ELF project as I have this vision of an elf sitting on a moon (or something to that nature).
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