links for 2010-10-08: More on MySQL price hikes; Jaspersoft predicts Java/MySQL resurgence; Salesforce.com adds REST APIs

• MySQL price hikes reveal depth of Oracle's wallet love: Time for Postgres? - Mentions same content I posted earlier, but clearly suggests PostgreSQL as the natural alternative.
  
• Months After Oracle's Acquisition of Sun, OSS Survey Predicts Resurgence of Java and MySQL - Survey doesn't address what people's answers would have been had Oracle not acquired Sun (perhaps the "resurgence" was already happening and it has diminished under Oracle), and in a few cases the conclusions are classic viewing the data the way one wants.  For example, their highlight #1 is that more than three quarters said MySQL use would increase or stay the same.  That is convenient grouping of answers as their data could be used to make the exact opposite statement, i.e. more than three quarters said MySQL use would decrease or stay the same.
  
• Salesforce.com Finally Adding REST API - While their approach to their SOAP API was somewhat RESTful already, the addition of true REST APIs is welcome.
  

links for 2010-09-09: NetApp vs Sun/Oracle quietly resolved; Developer vs CIO perspective; Apple relaxes restrictions

• NetApp, Oracle dismiss patent suit - It is probably the best result since both sides were suing each other.
• Meet the New Kingmakers: Same as the Old Kingmakers - The different perspectives of the Developer vs the CIO.
• Apple throws developers a bone, relaxes restrictions on third party tools - An interesting about face, probably due more to the FTC poking around than Apple wanting to appease developers.
  

links for 2010-07-17: OpenSolaris Discontent; Open source or not?; Motorola Droid X self destructs; WinPhone 7 just an iPhone 1 knock off

• OpenSolaris Governing Board Threatens to Shoot Itself In The Head - Interesting point of view on how things were with Sun and are with Oracle regarding OpenSolaris.
• Choosing Whether to go Open Source - Huh? "That explains why using open source for production in mission-critical environments, particularly where security is essential, has been relatively rare."  This premise is shot down moments later with this: "About 90% of our servers are running Linux. They're certainly as secure as the Windows world"
  
• Droid X actually self-destructs if you try to mod it - The majority of users won't know or care, but it will be interesting to see if techies avoid the device and this backfires on Motorola.
  
• Windows Phone 7: Don't bother with this disaster - Not a good sign: "Microsoft's demos of its great mobile hope shows Windows Phone 7 to be only a tepid knockoff of a 2007-era iPhone"
  

NextGate Webinar on Integration Options for Sun Customers; Convert your Monk Code to Java

Back in February just after Oracle's acquisition of Sun closed, I wrote a few thoughts on the strategy for Sun's middleware.  Something I didn't go into detail on is what the plans were for Sun's MDM and legacy integration products like DataGate, e*Gate, TRE, SRE, and ICAN.  Thankfully for those customers that have a lot invested in those products or technologies they included like Monk, NextGate is holding a series of webinars on what the options are.

The first one was held last week and there is another this Wednesday.  If you want to learn more, join one!

links for 2010-06-25: iOS4 vs Android Multitasking; Tiered Data Pricing; AWS SNS User Survey; eGate and Java CAPS future options

• Apple iOS 4 vs. Android Multitasking: Which Approach Is Better for Users? - A good highlighting of the pros and cons.  What it fails to note is that the con against Android (grace and vision?) can and will be addressed while the con against Apple will likely not be as it goes against Apple's approach of dumbing it down for the user.
• Report on AT&T's tiered data pricing forgets the innovation factor - It is interesting how the cycle seems to be going back to tiers and not unlimited.
  
• AWS SNS User Survey - An opportunity to give feedback to Amazon on their Simple Notification Service.  I'd advise not simply asking for all the features of your favorite JMS provider, think Cloud!
• NextGate webinar for Sun Integration customers - Good information on what the options are for future strategies around eGate, ICAN, SRE, and Java CAPS.  They are holding it again next week.

links for 2010-06-24: iOS 4 missed on multi-tasking; iOS4 vs Android; History of Communication; Oracle see Sun profit

• Multitasking With iOS 4 is Horrible: Apple Blew It - One person's view of one of the key features of iOS 4.  It seems only select apps can do it and/or developers have to write special code for it.  Also see this: "on day one, this feature is a mixed bag, and appears to be best left to Apple's own core apps--as opposed to third-party apps--which largely defeats the purpose of the feature."
  
• iOS 4 ... All you need to know! - One persons review, another here comparing an iPhone with Android.
• A Modern History of Human Communication - Interesting chart, and yes I'm a Google Voice user and love it.
• Oracle Beats, Sees Sun Profit - They say Sun contributed $400M to operating income.

links for 2010-06-22: Flash goes Mobile; Java's Future; Java CAPS Future;

• Adobe launches Flash 10.1 for Mobile: More than half of all smartphones by 2012? - There may be issues at first (battery life?), but pushing the envelope is how issues get resolved, not by constraining innovation.
  
• Why I'm Worried About Java's Future - John highlights the 2GB JVM memory limitation as a key issue.
  
• Wondering what to do about your integration strategy as it relates to Java CAPS? - NextGate to hold 2 webinars on what options Java CAPS (and eGate and DataGate) customers have now that they are Oracle's customers.
  
• The Economics of Open Source: Why the Billion Dollar Barrier is Irrelevant - As he's mentioned before, Stephen says data is the key: "Data is likely, in my view, to be more profitable longer term than mechanisms such as dual licensing (coverage). Telemetry (coverage) is the obvious next revenue source for open source entitites."
  

links for 2010-06-16: Scott McNealy on 25 years of .com; Oracle cutting more Sun jobs; NetBeans 6.9 released; Twitter outages; Linux share increases; JPL in the clouds

• Scott McNealy’s Top 15 Reasons He’s Surprised We’re Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Web - It is always great to see Scott on stage, especially when he has a top-10 (errr 15) list.
  
• Steven Strogatz on the Elements of Math - I blogged most of his individual entries earlier this year, now you can get them all in one place.  Good stuff for those curious about math.
  
• Oracle Cutting More Jobs Tied To Sun Deal; Taking Big Charge - Seems to be tied to LEC completing in European and Asian countries, but still sad to see.
  
• Oracle Delivers NetBeans IDE 6.9: Expanding Support for JavaFX 1.3 and OSGi - It is good to see that NetBeans doesn't seem to be withering away.  But the preferred IDE for Fusion is still JDeveloper and Eclipse.
  
• Twitter: Sorry, but outages come with bigger improvement plan - Interesting analogy to road construction.
  
• Linux inches up on desktop, holds steady on servers - The only OS to gain share in May.  I can understand Windows dipping but I'm surprised Mac OS dipped too.
  
• NASA JPL, robots and the AWS cloud - Some interesting applications of EC2, SimpleDB, and S3.
  

links for 2010-05-13: Ellison on fixing Sun; Fragmenting Linux a bad thing; Apple's cache waning?; Infinity; SAP acquires Sybase

• Ellison on how he is fixing Sun - He doesn't hold back on pointing out Sun's pre-acquisition flaws.  It is unforgivable if they are all so easily fixed.
• Fragmenting Linux is not the way to beat Apple - But will the vendors using Linux as the core of their mobile strategy align?
  
• Is Apple's cache waning? - The iPhone 4 announcement in June will tell us a lot in answering this question.
• Android's army passes iPhone OS, says NPD - The jump seems pretty big when comparing with other research from 2009, but the trend is clear regardless of the actual numbers.
  
• Infinity - The Hilbert Hotel - If you ever wondered what infinity squared is, this one is for you.
• SAP acquires Sybase - This is a reflection of being a software vs hardware company, but Oracle pays $7.4B for Sun with >$10B in revenue while SAP gets Sybase for $5.4B with about $1.2B in revenue

links for 2010-04-22: Oracle on OpenESB; Android on iPhone; Dell Android phone

• OpenESB under Oracle - Frank writes what has been said on the mailing lists in bits and pieces.  It is now time for the community to step up, especially with Frank leaving Oracle to go to Google.
• Android running on iPhone - If only Apple actually allowed this stuff, think of the innovation we might have.
• Dell Thunder explodes Android with 4.1-inch OLED screen, promises Hulu app - 4.1 inch display, Flash, Hulu app, what's not to like?
  

links for 2010-04-16: McNealy Speaks; Microsoft and Google on collision course; Cloud printing

• Scott McNealy can still dish - "... in the ‘80s we were preaching that the network is the computer. Shame on us for not summing it up in one word – cloud"
• Microsoft, Google On Office Computing Collision Course - Interesting how they are converging on the same space.  Much like various vendors in the middleware space converged on SOA platforms from EAI, BPM, and app-servers.
• First look: Google Docs gets realtime collaboration - The presence feature sounds very nifty and useful.
• Printer drivers: A thing of the past? Google, HP seem to think so - Isn't a printer driver still required where the printer is attached?
  

links for 2010-04-15: Google and Sun vision and results; Free meals for biking; Opera on iPhone

• Google and Sun: Same vision, different results - "... it's hard to realize a "network is the computer" future when you're stuck selling the hardware to power that network, rather than profiting from the software running atop the network, as Google does."
  
• Danish eco-hotel offers pedalpower free meal - Ride a bike, get a free meal!
  
• Opera off to nice iPhone start; Will it have staying power? - "But here’s the big question: What happens to Opera when all the included mobile browsers—Webkit based and otherwise—improve?"
  

Oracle Unveils GlassFish Roadmap

Several folks from Oracle had an informal webinar last Thursday to share plans for GlassFish with the community.  While there had been a number of statements from Oracle around the plans for GlassFish and how it would be advanced, an actual roadmap and more specifics had not been shared yet so the community justifiably still had a little angst about what they could expect.

All in all, the roadmap that was shared was consistent with previous statements and more or less what I expected.  There will be minor releases of v3 (errr, just 3.x now, the "v" terminology seems to be gone) that add in some administration, clustering, and high availability features that exist in v2 (err 2.x) and ultimately a GlassFish 4 that would be in sync with the finalization and release of Java EE 7.  Interspersed in the 3.1 and 3.2 releases may also be some additional value add features like Oracle Coherence support and some integration with Oracle Identity Management, all rational things to be adding to try to pull more sales for Fusion middleware.

What wasn't in the roadmap, again as expected, were any features that would increase competition with WebLogic.  Someone asked if Fusion Middleware or Fusion Apps were going to be certified to run on GlassFish and the answer was no.  And the clustering features above are really required to just get back to parity with GlassFish 2.  And the support they are looking to add for Coherence and OIM is really to ensure they can sell Fusion Middleware to GlassFish customers.

Another important change is around naming, distribution, licensing and there is both good and bad news.

First, on naming, the community bits will now be GlassFish Server Open Source Edition and the commercial bits will be Oracle GlassFish Server.  The difference will be that the commercial bits add in value-add features and come with a different license.  The community bits will continue to use the open-source licenses they do today.

The good news is that the commercial bits, including the value add features Sun had for paying customers and presumably the value add features mentioned above in the roadmap, will be available for free download!  This is great as it should generate better awareness of the performance monitor/advisor and enterprise manager.

The bad news is that the commercial bits, as noted above, have a different license for the free download, likely the same or similar to the existing Oracle Technology Network developer license which limits use of the bits to "only for the purpose of developing, testing,  prototyping and demonstrating your application, and not for any other purpose."  This means that unlike the license Sun used for the commercial bits downloaded from sun.com, you are not allowed to use the commercial bits in production.

Now, this is likely not that big an issue as the majority of GlassFish users probably downloaded their bits from the community site and weren't getting the commercial bits.  Just keep in mind that with GlassFish Server 3.0.1 downloaded from OTN that while you will now get the add-ons included, you won't be entitled to use it in production.

Interested in other views?  See DZone's summary or vote on the Java.net poll on what you think of the roadmap (and see what others think too).  It is interesting that as I write this, the top 2 things folks liked are that GlassFish remains open and the clustering features coming to get parity with v2.  The bottom 2 things are an Oracle supported distro and the interop with other Fusion Middleware.  Interesting.

links for 2010-03-31: Leadership Lessons; Rimini response to Oracle; Gmail and OAuth; Oracle closes loopholes; JumpBox eases apps on EC2; IBM buy Novell?; Apple violated multitouch patent?

• Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy - Listen to the words.
  
• Rimini Street Sues Oracle - The saga continues.
• Gmail adds OAuth support - It is great that it opens the door to new apps, but remember, while you don't have to share your Gmail password, the 3rd party app still has full access to your e-mails.
• Oracle goes all or nothing on hardware support - Closing the loopholes Sun perhaps should have years ago.
• JumpBox Jumps Ahead - Open Source as a Service on Amazon EC2 - Making the cloud easier to use.  And there is a great library available that includes MySQL, PostgreSQL, Tomcat, Ruby on Rails, SugarCRM, MediaWiki, phpBB, Drupal, Liferay, Wordpress, Jasper, and much more.  But no GlassFish or JBoss?
  
• Why doesn't IBM just buy Novell already? - Interesting thought.  But then so is IBM buying RedHat or IBM buying Canonical.
  
• Chipmaker sues Apple for violating multitouch patent - What goes around, comes around.  Jonathan's blog on the subject is interesting as is Stephen O'Grady's reasons against software patents.

links for 2010-03-25: Redis or SimpleDB?; Oracle extracting revenue from Sun customers; AWS SDK for Java

• Redis: A Warp Speed database - The author references Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle having databases so VMware needs one, but this move by VMware is squarely aimed at AWS and their SimpleDB IMHO.
  
• Oracle enacts 'all or nothing' hardware support policy - No real surprise here.  Sun customers will likely be paying more than before.
  
• New AWS SDK for Java Developers - New tools for the cloud.
  

links for 2010-03-19: Russia approves Oracle/Sun; Palm Reports; Tim Bray on Andriod; America's Cup

• Russia approves Oracle, Sun merger with conditions - Not sure what the condition really means as how can it be proven they continue to develop it?  For what period?  That said, other open-source projects from Sun would have welcomed such conditions given what appear to be their fate.
• Palm reports results - Not a good trend.
• Tim Bray interview on Android - "More importantly, because the platform is open source and the APIs to all of the components of Android phones are open, there are no developer NDAs. Programmers who encounter a problem merely need to Google the error code and find answers and solutions in the large development community."
• Larry Ellison: Make America's Cup about sailing, not money - "This kind of talk is certain to warm the soggy hearts of yacht-racing fans everywhere. Coming, however, from a man who can, and often does, buy whatever he wants, it also seems to stretch credulity."  Ironic to say this after spending $400M to win it himself.  But he does admit that 1 out of every 10 years it is ok to have a free for all like we just had.

Oracle and Sun's Open Source Projects

When I wrote my Analysis of Oracle's Strategy for Sun's Middleware, I made mention of Oracle's somewhat vague statements about the future of several open-source communities and projects.  GlassFish is a special case and I covered it as such, but a couple key projects that did not have clear plans articulated were OpenESB and OpenSSO.

For OpenESB at least, and perhaps this is an indication of what will happen with OpenSSO, we do have more clarity from an e-mail sent on the users alias a couple days ago.  Thanks to Frank for sending it, and he highlights a few key things about OpenESB and GlassFish ESB:

• Oracle does not intend to let the project disappear and will keep it on java.net/Kenai.
• Oracle has scaled down the investments in OpenESB from what they were at Sun.
• There is a hope the community will step up to fill the void left by the reduced investment.
• Existing GlassFish ESB customers will be supported and can buy more licenses, but there is no intent to sell licenses to new customers.

There is also an updated governance document that continues to require a Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) to be signed to contribute and outlines Oracle's special role in the project as steward and reserves the right to:

• Accept/reject committers
• Veto the roadmap
• Veto changes to the OpenESB website
• Accept / reject changes to this governance document

So in effect, they will continue to provide the infrastructure for the project but also maintain strict control of the project.  The question then is how these rights will be exercised.  My guess is that as long as what is proposed/contributed is an evolution of what exists they will remain fairly hands off.  However, should anything that is there become competitive to or a threat to an Oracle product, I'd expect the rights above to be exercised to some degree to address that.

It is also very important to note that by continuing to require the SCA to contribute, Oracle maintains copyright to all the code and thus the right to use anything developed and contributed in Oracle commercial product under a non-open-source license.  I don't think folks should be scared away by this alone, but it is something to remember and not be surprised by should features or code from OpenESB show up in Fusion Middleware.

This is good news for several of the companies that have formed around the development of components and implementation using OpenESB like Logicoy, ForgeRock, Pymma, Imola, Adjoovo, and more, as it means they don't have to create their own fork(s) and can continue to collaborate together in the community.

It is now up to the community to step up and contribute and see how this plays out for real, but the opportunity for them to do so is great news.  Will this same model be applied to OpenSSO?  We'll have to wait and see.

Analysis of Oracle's strategy for Sun's Middleware

Oracle has done an admirable job of quickly communicating strategy and plans for how they will integrate, support, and invest in Sun's products and lines of business.  See their Transforming the IT Industry event and the Product Strategy Webcast Series for what they are saying publicly.  But their presentations only go so deep and there are many details left to interpretation.

So, we have analysis and opinions expressed by analysts like Coté and Stephen O'Grady at RedMonk and John Rymer from Forrester.  But a host of others have voiced their opinions and concerns and folks from Oracle have responded to some (see end of this post for a sampling) so I figured I'd weigh in with my view of what will happen, specifically to Sun's middleware products.  As I really like the Q&A format that @sogrady uses, I'll use it here too.

Q: Before we begin, anything to disclose?
A: Yes, while at Sun, at different times I ran Product Management for the SOA and Application Platform product lines as well as middleware and MySQL strategy.  I am no longer with Sun or Oracle now, and thus, everything written below is just my opinion and does not reflect any official position or statement from either company.

Q: For those that missed it, what happened with Oracle and Sun in the past few weeks?
A: The long awaited closing of Oracle's acquisition of Sun closed on January 27th, the same day as Oracle's high-level strategy event.  They subsequently released more detailed strategy webcasts on each of the acquired product areas.

Q: Cool, that's great that they did this, but can you summarize what is going to happen with Sun's middleware portfolio, starting with GlassFish fitting in with WebLogic?
A: Both Thomas Kurian and Hasan Rizvi clearly stated that WebLogic would be Oracle's strategic application server targeting enterprise deployments.  They also clearly said that GlassFish would continue as the Java EE Reference Implementation and an open-source project.

Q: Ok, that's great, but there is a lot of grey area in between.  Were any other details provided?
A: Yes, Hasan's webcast identified that GlassFish would continue to be support and sold as a standalone offering, but would also be added to all WebLogic offerings.

Q: So that's good for GlassFish then, right?
A: Mostly yes.  There was a mention that GlassFish would be targeted to departmental applications which would seem to indicate that they would maintain differentiation between GlassFish and WebLogic and push WebLogic for enterprise deployments.  However, in a response to a blog entry on the subject, Mike Lehmann (Oracle Product Management) hinted that some clustering and HA features that exist in GlassFish v2.1 would ultimately get into v3, so this appears to not be part of the gap.  There is still plenty to offer as differentiation beyond clustering and HA though.

The reason to have differentiation would be to not cannibalize WebLogic revenue.  They are already addressing this somewhat by including GlassFish in WebLogic offerings, but if it is available standalone they can't have a low priced GlassFish (pricing from Sun was a fraction of a WebLogic license) selling instead of WebLogic.  An alternative to having a lot of differentiation would be to raise the price of GlassFish to a level such that the lost revenue is small, or (and this is probably what they'd prefer, that a customer chooses to just pay a little more and get a WebLogic offering that now includes GlassFish.  It is this latter scenario that I expect to happen.  Of course, Oracle could choose to raise prices for WebLogic as well since it now includes GlassFish.

Q: Well, do they have to raise prices on GlassFish?
A: Not necessarily.  There was also mention during the webcasts particularly by Larry during his section that Sales was going to be comped on selling high margin items.  Thus, they might not raise GlassFish prices to WebLogic levels, but the margin on GlassFish would be lower so Sales would have less incentive to sell it.

Q: So is this good for app server customers?
A: It depends on the customer.  If they are an existing GlassFish customer, yes.  There is a commitment to continue developing and supporting the product for a long time.  Note that the development will likely stop short of providing features making it fully competitive with WebLogic though.  And at some point, renewals or maintenance will cost more than they do today.

If they are an existing or future WebLogic customer, yes.  WebLogic remains the strategic app server and should benefit through cross pollination with GlassFish as well as perhaps have Java EE 6 support accelerated.  Depending on how Oracle interprets existing WebLogic licenses, these customers may also get GlassFish for free since it is now part of WebLogic offerings.

If they are a future GlassFish customer, perhaps no.  I say that, not because GlassFish will suffer feature debt (although there will be some of that to maintain differentiation), rather it is because the price they will pay for GlassFish will almost certainly be significantly higher than it would have been from Sun.  Also, as noted above for existing GlassFish customers, some features that might have been desired may never make it and be reserved for WebLogic.

Q: Ok, enough about GlassFish, what about the rest of the Application Platform portfolio?
A: The Sun Web Server, likely rebranded/renamed to avoid confusion with the Oracle HTTP Server, will continue to be supported and sold perhaps as a peer to Oracle HTTP Server.  I expect that the Sun Web Stack will not be invested in and just existing customers supported.

Existing Sun Portal and Sun Web Space Server customers will be supported, but neither product will be invested in as Web Center is the strategic portal offering.

GlassFish MQ (OpenMQ) will stick around as part of GlassFish but won't be promoted on its own.

Q: Whew, that wasn't as simple as I'd hoped.  Is it simpler for SOA?
A: Generally yes.  Oracle did not identify any of Sun's SOA portfolio as strategic, but did pledge to support existing customers for a long period of time.  Further, they said that they would create bridge technology to allow collaboration between Java CAPS and Oracle SOA Suite, although this should effectively already exist through JMS and Web Services support today, so I'm interested to see what is added.  They also mentioned credits for customers wanting to convert from Java CAPS to Oracle SOA Suite.

There is less clarity or certainty around GlassFish ESB (and its open-source OpenESB project) as the statement simply said it would continue as an open-source project.  If the rumors on the community mailing list are true though, a large portion of the SOA staff were not kept which raises the question of who will be continuing the project?  Perhaps an opportunity for the community to step forward.

Oracle also said that the NHIN CONNECT open-source project would be supported.  Since portions of this was originally based on OpenESB, it is unclear how this will be accomplish though with a potentially short staffed group of engineers.  There is also some discussion on some mailing lists that NHIN CONNECT is really just using EJBs in GlassFish and not (that much of) GlassFish ESB.

Q: Didn't Sun have some cool MDM technology that came from SeeBeyond?
A: Yes, you do know this space don't you!  The roots of the technology are in healthcare and it is the Healthcare and Life Sciences vertical at Oracle that will be integrating this technology into their offerings according to that groups strategy webcast.

Q: Ok, how about identity and access management products?
A: The short answer is that Sun's Directory Server Enterprise Edition (DSEE) continues as a peer to Oracle's Internet Directory, both being strategic, Sun's Role Manager will be strategic, but the strategic products for the rest of the portfolio will be Oracle's existing products.

As far as OpenSSO goes, we get the amorphous statement about the open-source project continuing, but it was also clearly stated that tools would be built to help OpenSSO Enterprise customers move to Oracle's strategic products so don't count on OpenSSO being enhanced.

I did find it interesting that in order to provide clear naming, they are bringing back Waveset to the name for Sun's Identity Manager.  Waveset was the name of the company that Sun acquired around 6 years ago that had the product that became Sun Identity Manager.

Q: Last, a lot of Sun's middleware had integrated tooling in NetBeans.  What will happen to NetBeans and that tooling?
A: Yes, Java CAPS and GlassFish ESB bundled NetBeans and provided plugins for doing all SOA and ESB development.  Similarly, NetBeans 6.8 delivered full Java EE 6 support and integrated GlassFish in its downloads to provide a great developer offering.  Oracle clearly stated that JDeveloper is the strategic IDE for Fusion Middleware, they also have Eclipse based tooling (ironically just announcing a new release), and thus having a third full blown IDE in NetBeans probably isn't in the offing.  The comments seem to indicate that while NetBeans will be continued, its focus will be as a lightweight Java and scripting IDE.

Q: Didn't Sun have some Eclipse tooling too?
A: Yes, the GlassFish Tools Bundle for Eclipse provided a bundle with Eclipse, GlassFish, and plugins for Eclipse providing GlassFish, and in its most recent edition, some Java EE 6 support.  I'd say there is a good chance this gets rolled in to the Eclipse based tooling mentioned above as a way to accelerate getting Java EE 6 support in the offering.

Q: So what is the net-net for customers of Sun's products?
A: The good news is Oracle has promised to support the products for a long period of time, thus the investment is safe in that regard.  Oracle has a strong history of supporting acquired products and that should continue in this case.

The bad news for most of the products is that they are not likely to be significantly enhanced and getting important new capabilities will likely require migrating to Oracle's equivalent products.  The other bad news is that when it comes time to renew or do that migration, prices could very well be higher, either due to price increases or because Oracle may be more particular about counting servers/CPUs used and perhaps even perform audits.

Q: Anything else?
A: As noted above, these are just my opinions.  I might be wrong on some points, and Oracle can and will adjust their plans based on customer and community feedback, so I could end up being way off in the end.  If you want to prove me wrong and are a customer, let Oracle know what you think to get them to adjust their plans.  For other opinions, see some of the links below.

Sampling of other's opinions:

• ZDNet - Oracle's Sun strategy: What to expect
• ServerWatch - Oracle Begins Picking Its Sun A-Team
• TheServerSide - Oracle for big businesses, open source for other businesses?
• Blog - Glassfish is doomed in the ‘department’
• Pymma Blog - Back to the middle age?
• Aquarium on GlassFish - GlassFish Support, HA, Clustering and More
• SearchSOA.com - Oracle-Sun: The Java community speaks 
• Oracle axes two Sun projects - Darkstar and Wonderland are "trimmed"
• SysCon - Oracle, Sun and the Enterprise CTO

My Farewell to Sun

I was notified a week ago that I would not be making the transition to Oracle and today was technically my termination date.  I came to Sun through the acquisition of SeeBeyond in 2005 and enjoyed the past 4.5 years working with fantastic engineers, creative marketeers, and just generally a bunch of great people.

I will miss many things at Sun from the culture, to the products (stay tuned for more thoughts on that in an upcoming blog entry), but most of all the people.  To those that are making the transition to Oracle, represent our products well and take advantage of the opportunity that working for Oracle provides.  To those that like me are not, best of luck in your future endeavors and let me know how I can help.

As far as I go, I will enjoy a little time off to see if I can improve my tennis and golf games and watch some Winter Olympics, but am definitely looking forward to the next challenge, whatever that may be, from middleware to cloud to development to who knows what.  My LinkedIn profile has a summary of what I've done and is a good way to contact me.

(image courtesy James Gosling)

Visible Source Software

I spent the last three days at Gartner's Application Architecture, Development, and Integration (AADI) Summit in Nashville. I had attended the AIWS conference in December and many of the themes were similar but there was some new information and predictions made that was great to hear.

I also had a chance to talk with several analysts, one of which, Mark Driver, has open source software as one of his focus areas. Something we talked about and he subsequently presented on is that many companies are positioning themselves as building open source software but that it isn't always the case that it is really open source. In fact, he says that Gartner will be changing their identification of some from open source to something else. This is because companies are using open source licenses that aren't truly open, either through not being able to use and extend the code or not being able to contribute back in any way.

Mark liked to think of this as accessible source software (doesn't result in a good acronym, although perhaps appropriate) and I suggested we talk about this kind of software as visible source software. In his presentation he talked about this as gated source software.

I like visible source as I think it properly distinguishes between those companies that are truly open, have a community, and opportunity for "outsiders" to join the community and contribute, and those that simply make their source available and try to benefit from the open source label but don't really allow for anyone to directly participate or become a contributor or committer. For all intents and purposes, the software is simply "visible" to others.

At Sun, we clearly believe in true open source software and this is evidenced by the contributors and committers in Project Open ESB. There are 7 companies listed as Community Partners, many of which are building components for the platform and several of those in open source with commit rights to the project, plus a growing number of individuals with commit rights that are building and contributing to components being developed in the project and community.

If you are interested in joining a truly open source community, come join Project Open ESB.