Twitter github
March 4, 2010
6 Comments

Free Chapter from the OSGi and Equinox Book

By

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.

March 4, 2010
No Comments

Register for EclipseCon Exercise 2010

By

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.

March 3, 2010
No Comments

Betting the Fat Away…

By

I was introduced to Fat Bet recently.

I have a couple colleagues participating in a “fat bet” and I’m a bit surprised with their progress. The way it works is you simply wager some money and set weight targets amongst a group of friends. You track the progress of each other online and in the end, the person that reaches their target first will win the most money in the pot. As a bonus, if you’re a spectator to the bet, you get an overview of everyone’s progress via a console…

If you dive deeper, you can see a graph of how close people are to meeting their targets…

So far it seems to be working well. There’s also a comedic bonus of hearing about your colleagues trying to sabotage each other’s fat bet by bringing in donuts and breakfast tacos into the office (human guile at it’s finest).

In the end, I guess an incentive of money tied to people’s pride works well :)?

March 2, 2010
5 Comments

Mylyn and the Little Things

By

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.

March 2, 2010
6 Comments

Open Source Business Resource (OSBR)

By

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.

March 1, 2010
No Comments

London 2010

By

Last week, I was on business in London but I had a bit of time for pleasure.

I have an extensive bucket list. One of those items was to have fish and chips in London.

Check (I could go without the mushy peas though).

While I was there, I also had the opportunity to tour the Tower of London.

I highly recommend the tour… the English loved their executions. On top of the history lesson, you get to see some sweet armaments…

The final verdict? Beautiful city with a lot of rich history. I could go without the cold rain though 🙂

March 1, 2010
10 Comments

I miss the turbo button…

By

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.

February 25, 2010
6 Comments

The Future of Application Servers at EclipseCon

By

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!

February 25, 2010
3 Comments

Recent Eclipse Project Proposals

By

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).

February 22, 2010
6 Comments

Rock the Eclipse Board Vote 2010

By

Today, the Eclipse Foundation’s Board Member elections start (to be exact, February 22, 2010 at noon EDT). You should receive an email with voting instructions if you’re eligible.

I insist you vote. If you can’t vote, I highly recommend you become an Eclipse Member as it gives the power to vote and influence the future direction of Eclipse.

The people that both represent committers and solution members have a unique position to push the board on specific subjects. I recall that last year, the committer representatives pushed extremely hard to have JGit hosted at Eclipse.org (due to it’s unique licensing situation). The first time we brought the issue up we were denied the move. However, through some passionate persistence on the committer representatives end, we pushed forward and were successful with the JGit move. The committer representatives also had a large impact on moving the Eclipse Marketplace forward. Although it’s not the appstore some of us envisioned yet, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

As for who you should vote for, I can simply say I vote for the people who are passionate and are committed (see Ed’s post) to the success of Eclipse. As always, I would be honored to be given the chance to represent the committers again on the board. I believe we have a great thing going on at Eclipse in respect to technology and open source project governance. I can only guarantee that I will continue to be passionate, do my best to attract/mentor new projects and improve the processes within the Eclipse community.

So what are you waiting for, rock the vote this afternoon.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »