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Java Programming Sun Microsystems

Sun Application Server 9.0 PE Open Sourced 31

farble1670 writes "Sun Microsystems has released their Application Server 9.0 PE platform as open source, under the code name Glassfish. Version 9.0, when complete, will be J2EE 5 compliant. Code is released under Sun's CDDL (common development and distribution license), the same license used to cover the Open Solaris, the open-source Solaris operating system. This is most likely a response to the popular open-source application server JBoss, which has cut into profits for Sun as well as other major application server vendors such as BEA and IBM."
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Sun Application Server 9.0 PE Open Sourced

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  • It was already free (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eric Giguere ( 42863 ) on Monday July 25, 2005 @08:22PM (#13161841) Homepage Journal

    This is just an evolutionary step. The application server was already free for production use (deployment, not just development). But yes, it would be a response to JBoss and others. Java app servers are pretty much a commodity at this stage, pushing vendors to release them for free and then sell expanded versions with additional bells and whistles.

    Eric
    A blog about book publishing, making money, Google, etc. [makeeasymo...google.com]
    • Of course, not just Java app server. Their python equivalent, Zope, has been open sourced for quite some time now.
    • Sigs should be in sigs.

      I hate to do it, but come on Eric: Your signature isn't even a signature: - I have signature viewing turned off, yet your 'make easy money with google.com' website advertisment is still showing.

      Keep your signature IN your signature, I don't believe you went to the trouble of copy/pasting a signature into your messages each and every time just to by pass peoples OWN choices in viewing signatures, that slashdot gives them. Luckily I just RIPped that link out of slashdot, so I won't se
      • It's not a conspiracy, Tod, just laziness on my part. I vary my signature on every post, that's all. Sometimes I point to my latest book, sometimes to my HTTP header tool, sometimes to my cereal box commentary, sometimes to nothing... It's just easier to cycle through them that way than changing the preferences all the time. Sheer laziness, which is kind of funny, because laziness is why signatures were invented in the first place... I guess I'll have to reform my ways...
  • Ruby? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Monday July 25, 2005 @08:38PM (#13161933)
    I wonder how people with a financial stake in Java app servers feel about Ruby on Rails?
    • Re:Ruby? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by astrashe ( 7452 ) on Monday July 25, 2005 @09:00PM (#13162042) Journal
      I'll probably get flamed, and rightfully so, because I'm really uninformed on this topic, and I'm going to shoot off my mouth anyway. I'm just a dilletante. But I don't think that rails is much of a competitor.

      Rails is more about rapid and agile development, and these big application servers are more about running big heavy duty enterprise apps.

      I have the feeling that most apps that run in these containers are speced out pretty completely, developed in concert with layers of management, etc. And then there are all of the java APIs, that do just about everything you'd want in an enterprise app.

      I sort of see rails as occupying a middle ground between PHP and a java app server. You get the structure of a java framework with the ability to know stuff out of PHP.

      But there's more of a learning curve than you have with PHP, and you don't get the really robust admin tools of a good app server and the fabled java APIs.

      So I think that they're really different tools for different kinds of jobs.

      • different tools for different kinds of jobs

        Pretty reasonable statement for an "uninformed" view. You're right, get ready for the flames...
      • Re:Ruby? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Back when I was a "web developer", we dabbled in J2EE (servlets & JSP, really) and it generally was just fine. However, after I left that project, the other developers tried to go whole-hog J2EE with enterprise beans and everything with WebLogic.

        Well, they talked professional and all and tried to be proud of their creation, but one thing they ran into was too many layers of abstraction. Their database was failing, and WebLogic's implementation ate all the important debugging information! They spent
        • Similar experiences here. My last J2EE project lost a few precious weeks trying to get Websphere implementation of entity beans to work on MSSQL. Even though each transaction inserted some fresh records and operated on them (distinct sets of records), we still managed to get database deadlocks (strange kind of index range locks). We tweaked all there was to tweak (locking schemes, isolation levels, both on DB level and app server level). Interestingly enough, we couldn't recreate the deadlocks outside Websp
      • Re:Ruby? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @12:56AM (#13162941)
        I sort of see rails as occupying a middle ground between PHP and a java app server. You get the structure of a java framework with the ability to know stuff out of PHP.

        That's a surprisingly accurate assessment for supposedly being "uninformed" about the topic. I have PHP and Java background and have recently researched Ruby a bit. At this point, Ruby would now be my choice over PHP for all but the lightest-weight jobs. If Ruby improves in the area of templating and component-based UI frameworks, it could knock PHP down quite low on the list and start to compete in the low-end Java arena.

        Java app servers, on the other hand, still run in an arena that the scripting languages can't begin to touch and by architectural nature never will. What is a more interesting comparison is modern lightweight Java tools (like Spring/Hibernate) vs. Ruby. These Java tools have a ways to go regarding loosing additional XML baggage, but they are still a significant improvement over current heavyweight J2EE app servers. What is most interesting is the convergence. Java tools are rising to the challenge of becoming simpler. Even the EJB 3.0 and J2EE 5 specs are heavily geared towards this goal. The question becomes: If Java tools get closer to the simplicity of scripting languages without losing the power of their architecture, where is the incentive to use scripting languages? Conversely, the scripting languages have simplicity nearly mastered but they have no headroom architecturally.

      • This is exactly correct. Appservers are often used for backend data processing. Usually something like, run a JMS server, let people publish data on it. Take the data, do something with it and a bunch of other data in a database. Make the results available through EJB, or possibly a web page. These tend to not be used for just webpages based on databases (simple shopping carts), but more for realtime trading, risk analysis, data processing, etc...

        Ruby on Rails and a J2EE appserver are completely different.
  • Glassfish? (Score:1, Troll)

    by cjsnell ( 5825 )

    The codename "glassfish" doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in this product. May I suggest "stonefish", "rockfish", or perhaps "swordfish"?
  • by mparaz ( 31980 ) on Monday July 25, 2005 @11:04PM (#13162608) Homepage
    Glassfish uses Derby [paraz.com], which was open sourced by IBM from the Cloudscape embedded database.
  • Bad Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by hritcu ( 871613 ) on Monday July 25, 2005 @11:08PM (#13162622) Homepage
    The "J2EE 5" link in TFA links to OpenSolaris, not to http://java.sun.com/j2ee/5.0/index.jsp [sun.com] or http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=244 [jcp.org] .
  • JBoss is not the only open source Appserver. Geronimo is moving quickly (recently passing the has passed the J2EE 1.4.1, on it's way to full J2EE compliance). IBM is providing support, a lot of it by donating Gluecode and other code to the apache project, and even BEA (even though they still sell WebLogic) contributing code to the Apache project, allowing their tools to target geronimo.
  • Geronimo (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Ratbert42 ( 452340 )
    Apache Geronimo [apache.org] is probably going to gain a lot of ground, especially with IBM backing it.
  • ...Sun releases a product which there are already credible Open Source versions of rather than what the community has been begging them for, an Open Source version of Java itself.

    Open Solaris doesn't matter at this point since we have Linux. Glassfish doesn't matter at this point since we have JBoss. When will they stop doing things that don't matter and do something that will matter, like Open Sourcing Java?!?

    • first, i don't think these two things are related. it's not like the sun execs sat down and said "okay we can either open source java or open source or app server, what should we do?"

      second, competition is good. even if you think app servers are a commodity. why don't you apply your "there already is one of those, we don't need another" logic to the entire economy? hey hondas are good cars, right? what is the point of making any other type of car?

      if you think that one application server is as good as a

      • To be clear, I don't think it's bad that Sun has Open Sourced the things that they have. Yes, more options are good. I'm sure that both Open Solaris and Glassfish are cool. The thing is, neither of them will do as much good as Open Source Java would.

        The difference between zero credible Open Source implementations and one is much greater than the difference between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3. Another free operating system is good, yes, but it doesn't have the same impact as the first one did. Another j2ee co

  • No, I mean, really.

    What's an application server?

  • After the whole Kiva -> Netscape -> iPlanet -> Sun fiasco, the company that *owns* Java (like it or not) has been completely unable to market a viable J2EE server product, and had their lunch split up and eaten between IBM & BEA. Then to add insult to injury, those nassssty OSS folks come along and roll their own (JBoss, Geronimo, JOnAS), and *those* have more street cred than Sun's product.

    They may as well throw the source out there, nobody really cares at this point...

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