The open source Apache Software Foundation failed to rally the Java Community Process (JCP) to its side and force Oracle to release the Java compatibility test kits (TCKs) that would let it certify Project Harmony, its breakaway open source version of Java Standard Edition for Linux, a...

The November 2009 issue of Communications of the ACM (CACM) has a very interesting article by Paul Stachour and David Collier-Brown entitled “You Don’t Know Jack About Software Maintenance”. The authors argue energetically for using versioned data structures and “continuous upgrading” ...

The Open Ajax Alliance is a standards organization with the mission of ensuring interoperability within Web based Ajaxified applications. One of their standards relates to intercomponent communication - the ability to subscribe and publish messages which can then be picked up by code w...

SOASTA, the leader in cloud testing, today announced a Performance Certification Program designed to enable companies deploying software in the Cloud, at hosted data centers, or behind corporate firewalls to certify that their website has been tested and has met or exceeded industry be...

In the past couple of years, interest in Jetty has surged. Jetty is an open source Java-based web and application server and servlet container, but what else do you know about it? To commemorate the 12th anniversary of Jetty, here are 12 things that might surprise you

Commercial open source software has arrived. There have been commercial sponsors of open source projects for a long time, but the recent spate of high-price (for open source, at least) acquisitions of companies with open source products at the core of their business has made a splash i...

Open source technology is a boon to companies that want to add features and functionality to their applications without the overhead. It eliminates the cost of databases, operating systems, and other infrastructure components, enabling quick and cost-effective access to new features. A...

As developers, we're familiar with the endless pains that result from maintaining overly complex systems. Some complexity is accidental, so we continually strive to remove its overhead from our application. The latest crop of frameworks and dynamic languages has demonstrated just how f...

In order to describe itself as an 'open source' company, need a company merely be 'a company that will help you make the switch to open source in your company' - or does it have to be one that lets users feely download, compile, and use the software in question? Where is the dividing l...

Many in the Open Source community (including the camps following Tomcat, Geronimo, Struts, Spring, and Hibernate) have chosen to focus on solving problems of developer efficiency and software elegance, and are sometimes forced to leave production operating characteristics such as HA (h...

Sun Microsystems recently announced its intentions of finally publishing Java under an Open Source license. But what does that actually mean? We'll take a quick look at what it means to be 'Open Source,' how the Java language specification compares to other more formal language standar...

On June 26, 2006 the Eclipse Foundation announced the availability of new releases of 10 Open Source projects. This simultaneous release event, named Callisto, garnered a lot of attention for the 10 projects involved. But, meanwhile, on the same day and without much fanfare, not even a...

Open Source means different things to different people. For some it's a business model. For others it's a way of collaborating. Some see it as a way of reducing costs. And some are out to change the world.

By now, you've probably heard about Eclipse as 'the Open Source Java IDE' (). Today, several companies have looked past the Java IDE plug-ins provided as part of Eclipse, and are creating products that use Eclipse as a tool integration platform, both inside and outside of the Java aren...

Callisto is the simultaneous release of 10 major Eclipse projects at the same time. An important thing to note about Callisto is that even though it's the simultaneous release of 10 projects, it doesn't mean these projects are unified. Each one remains a separate Open Source project op...

In an effort to provide developers with a productive environment, Oracle has been working on a very rich UI component framework for several years. This framework - ADF Faces - has now been donated to the open source community. More precisely, it has been donated to the Apache Software ...

Out of the blue, with its unstoppable passion for homing in on THE issue of the day, the world's most-read business magazine - BusinessWeek - has triangulated on Java as one of the the software world's key ignition points right now.

AS well as examining the past comments about the prospects of an open-source Java by Jonathan Schwartz, now CEO of Sun, today's round-up of influencers and their opinions includes the thoughts of LinuxQuestions.org founder Jeremy Garcia.

Two years ago Rod Smith, IBM Software's VP of Emerging Technologies (and still with IBM today), wrote an open letter to Rob Gingell, Sun's Chief Engineer (now with Cassatt). IBM, Smith said, 'would like to work with Sun on an independent project to open source Java.'

'The fact that there is so much discussion going on is of interest,' wrote Sun's John Clingan in his blog yesterday. The discussion is 'all over the map,' Clingan noted: 'Some like the idea of Open Source Java. Some think that will negatively affect WORA. There doesn't seem to be any g...

Responding to remarks at Sun's February 2004 analyst meeting, Eric S. Raymond - President of the Open Source Initiative - in February 2004 wrote an Open Letter to Scott McNealy. The letter ends: 'Mr. CEO, tear down that wall. You have millions of potential allies out here in the open-s...

'Carefully done, open-sourcing [Java] could actually promote interoperability by making it easier for disparate groups to align behind one code base,' wrote Sun's James Gosling in his widely read java.net blog at the end of April 2004.

'Why is it good to open source OpenSolaris and OpenOffice and bad to open source Java?' In an Open Letter to Sun's Jonathan Schwartz, that's what ActiveGrid CEO Peter Yared asked, back in March. Yared added: 'Can you please answer the following question with a single coherent sentence ...

'For Sun,' said Simon Phipps in a recent interview, 'the open source message is a very natural 21st century expression of how Sun has been doing business for more than 20 years.' Given that Phipps is Chief Open Source Officer at Sun, it is hardly surprising that he should be keen on wh...