Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

[Posted August 5, 2003 by corbet]

From:		Greg Stein <gstein@apache.org>
To:		announce@apache.org, general@jakarta.apache.org, general@incubator.apache.org, Bela Ban <belaban@yahoo.com>, javagroups-development@lists.sourceforge.net, javagroups-users@lists.sourceforge.net, jboss-development@lists.sourceforge.net, jboss-user@lists.sourceforge.net, jonas@objectweb.org, openjms-developer@lists.sourceforge.net, openjms-user@lists.sourceforge.net, openorb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, openorb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject:		Invitation to participate in Apache J2EE efforts
Date:		Tue, 5 Aug 2003 08:58:25 -0700

As you may have heard by now, the Apache Software Foundation has initiated a
project to develop an open source, Apache-licensed implementation of the
J2EE specification. In addition, the project is committed to certifying the
implementation as J2EE compliant. This is an ambitious goal and will present
a formidable challenge for the people involved, given the wide range of
technologies covered by the specification.

The project (tentatively named "Apache Geronimo") builds upon the many Java
projects at the Apache Software Foundation. In addition, the project is
bringing together leading members of the Castor, JBoss, MX4J and OpenEJB
communities. We would like to extend an open invitation to everyone involved
in the J2EE space, both commercial entities and talented individuals, to
join the community and build a world-class J2EE implementation.

The Apache Software Foundation is in a unique position to build a J2EE
compliant platform. Our non-profit, charity status, and our relationship
with Sun Microsystems, provides the Foundation with access to the J2EE TCKs,
making it possible to achieve certification. In addition, our flexible and
unrestrictive licensing makes it possible for a wide variety of participants
to assist in the development of Apache Geronimo, and to build their own
solutions upon the platform.

Apache Geronimo has been launched within the Apache Incubator. You can find
more information about the Incubator at http://incubator.apache.org/. To
find out more about this project or if you would like to become involved,
please send email to the incubator mailing list: general@incubator.apache.org


    On behalf of the Apache Geronimo Team,

    Greg Stein,
    Chairman of the Apache Software Foundation

-- 
gstein@apache.org ... ASF Chairman ... http://www.apache.org/

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 17:23 UTC (Tue) by cpeterso (guest, #305) [Link] (3 responses)

This is very interesting. Can they reuse any of the existing JBoss code? Probably not. I think JBoss is GPL. Competition is healthy; good luck, Apapche! :-)

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 17:54 UTC (Tue) by gstein (guest, #3612) [Link] (2 responses)

Correct -- JBoss is LGPL which is incompatible with the Apache license. Thus, we will not (and cannot) simply use the JBoss code. Of course, JBoss is invited to bring their code to Apache; they have a lot of value to bring, so I hope they will.

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 18:08 UTC (Tue) by cypherpunks (guest, #1288) [Link] (1 responses)

Since JOnAS is also LGPL, I guess this means we may end up with
*three* competing free J2EE implementations?

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 18:33 UTC (Tue) by gstein (guest, #3612) [Link]

That would be most unfortunate. We're also inviting the JOnAS folks to partipate (see the email quoted above; we posted to the jonas list).

With the ASF's unrestrictive license, I'm hoping that people will be able to use the ASF implementation for their needs rather than building separate systems.

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 19:22 UTC (Tue) by judge (guest, #6234) [Link] (3 responses)

Isn't having an open source java vm essesial to having j2ee or whatever?
It also seems like it's the most technicly complicated part of the puzzle.

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 19:45 UTC (Tue) by gstein (guest, #3612) [Link] (2 responses)

It is quite possible to run an open source J2EE server on top of proprietary JVMs. In fact, I'd think it would be quite common to run stuff on top of IBM's or Sun's JVM.

That said, there are open source JVMs such as Kaffe or Blackdown.

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 6, 2003 9:45 UTC (Wed) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] (1 responses)

Sorry if I'm missing something, but is Blackdown really open-source? I've always thought that it is merely a Linux port of Sun's JVM...

Also, I've never seen a single serious piece of Java software (including free and prorietary) that would run with Kaffe. There are NO usable free JVMs out there, and in that situation I can't call anything depending on JVM truly free.

Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 7, 2003 10:30 UTC (Thu) by Carl (guest, #824) [Link]

Sorry if I'm missing something, but is Blackdown really open-source? I've always thought that it is merely a Linux port of Sun's JVM...

You are correct. It is just a proprietary port of the original Sun VM.

There are NO usable free JVMs out there

Kaffe has seen huge improvements recently (check out their 1.1 release series, which they say are development snapshots, but which are really stable and usable.) But since kaffe the VM and class libraries is all GPL there is of course a problem when combining it into larger work if some of that is licensed under the Apache License, which isn't GPL compatible (at the moment).

gcj (the GNU Compiler for Java) also has seen great improvements recently. It is now possible (with some patches, but Red Hat provides RPMs) to run the Eclipse IDE with it (natively compiled even for amazing speeds!). And there is the rhug and the Naoko projects which have packaged large lists of free software written in the java language for inclusion in the next Red Hat release. (Ant, Tomcat, BCEL, apache-commons, xalan, xerces, struts, postgresql JDBC drivers, rhino, Jasmin, JUnit, CUP, BSF, etc.)

GPL and Apache --Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 19:23 UTC (Tue) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link] (2 responses)

One of the most problematic thing about the Apache license is that it is not compatible with the GPL and thus I cannot reuse Apache code in GPL projects. I am not asking for Apache to GPL their code; I just wish the Apache group can grant a permission to allow all GPL projects to use their code under the GPL.

GPL and Apache --Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 5, 2003 20:05 UTC (Tue) by gstein (guest, #3612) [Link] (1 responses)

The Apache license isn't the problem -- we cannot grant an exception because the "problem" is tied to the GPL. The ASL simply asks that you don't use the Apache trademarks such as "Apache" or "Apache Tomcat". The FSF has interpreted that request as conflicting with the GPL's notion of "no additional restrictions [on redistribution]."

So... if you are the author of the GPL code, and you agree with the FSF's interpretation, then you can easily say, "the restrictions in the ASL-licensed code are not considered an additional restriction under the GPL." In other words, since you're the person applying the GPL license, then you also get to interpret how it gets combined and applied.

And all that said, the ASF is working on a new license to avoid the confusion around this issue. We'll be rolling out the new license this fall.

GPL and Apache --Apache Geronimo: developing a free J2EE implementation

Posted Aug 7, 2003 10:44 UTC (Thu) by Carl (guest, #824) [Link]

The ASL simply asks that you don't use the Apache trademarks such as "Apache" or "Apache Tomcat". The FSF has interpreted that request as conflicting with the GPL's notion of "no additional restrictions [on redistribution]."

I believe that is indeed the main restriction holding back combining GPL and ASL code. If the words that are restricted from use by the ASL are indeed validly trademarked then there would not be a conflict since the GPL is only a copyright statement which does not conflict with valid trademarks. But if the words in question are not valid trademarks then it can be seen as an added restriction (since you then don't rely on trademark law, but on copyright law to restrict how people can create and distribute a larger work).

And additional problem is that every project that adopts the ASL adds some extra words to the mix. It is a bit like the original BSD advertising clause, which also became just bigger and bigger so that you in the end needed half a page to just advertise all the contributors.

But that only works if you can convince all copyright holders of the work to relicense the work under the GPL plus this exception. And then you still cannot combine the code again with other pure GPL code so it doesn't help much.

And all that said, the ASF is working on a new license to avoid the confusion around this issue. We'll be rolling out the new license this fall.

That would be really great! Not just for projects distributed under the Apache license, but for the whole free java community. The GPL incompatibility of the AFS has really prevented larger adoption of some really nice free software.

Letter from ObjectWeb to ASF about cooperation

Posted Sep 3, 2003 16:04 UTC (Wed) by flet (guest, #14761) [Link]

Following the letter sent by Greg Stein to the JOnAS team on August 5th, ObjectWeb's Executive Committee President Christophe Ney answered and proposed to seek synergies between the two non-profit organizations, ASF and ObjectWeb.

You'll find the whole letter in the ObjectWeb community ML archive at :
http://www.objectweb.org/wws/arc/community/2003-09/msg00002.html
and more info about ObjectWeb and JOnAS at :
http://www.objectweb.org
http://jonas.objectweb.org

Here is an excerpt of this letter:
"[...]
The announcement of the Geronimo project came at a very special moment for us, right when Red Hat unveiled their strategic decision of getting involved into ObjectWeb and shipping JOnAS in future releases of their Enterprise distribution. We also were looking into getting the J2EE compatibility certification and just approached Sun on this matter. Jonathan Schwartz from Sun said, "If ObjectWeb is just Apache with a different face, we'd love to work with them". As for us, we strongly believe that Apache and ObjectWeb share the same goals and the same non-profit policy, and we'd love to make our two communities work together.

We are delighted to see another open-source J2EE initiative start up. This shows that the market is now ready for open-source J2EE application servers. Nevertheless, ObjectWeb has a wider scope than JOnAS just like Apache extends well beyond Geronimo. Beside the project level, we believe that we now have a unique opportunity of tightening the relations between our two organizations through common work and common thinking.
[...]"