Who’s On Phirst

In the last 10 years, Open Source software has provided an incredible benefit to the software development process. Most open source software projects present quality, well-tested APIs and libraries that can be quickly integrated into a product, providing much-needed functionality that does not have to be developed in-house. While there are too many projects to even begin to mention, the software produced by the Apache Project, and SpringSource provide frameworks and utilities that would take companies man man-years to develop on their own.

There are, however, a few issues that every organization should consider before choosing to include open source software in their commercial products. While these issues are usually not show-stoppers in the decision process, but should be viewed as risk factors. Failure to consider these issues can leave a company with problems that cause development and maintenance nightmares.

First, I would take the time to consider the involvement of the project's community of users and developers. Is work on the project ongoing, or does it seem to be stagnant? Are there discussion forums for the project, and do the developers post to the forum? An active Open Source project community enables you to resolve usage issues, obtain patches, and generally integrate the project more quickly into your product. A less active community can be an indicator that the project has not been well-received, perhaps because of stability, or even issues with its usefulness.

Licensing is a potential Pandora's Box of issues for anyone wishing to include Open Source software in their product. In general, software which fall under BSD or Apache licenses are the safest to use. For example, the Apache License allows free use, modification, and distribution of their software, provided that the appropriate notice is included. A great source of information concerning Open Source licensing issues is the Open Source Initiative. This group maintains the definition of open source software, and vets licenses in order to certify that the license adheres to it. In this litigative age that we live in, no one needs the hassle of a potential lawsuit involving their product.

In my opinion, while there are issues involved in the choice to include open source software in a commercial software product, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

In Open Source
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When I started working with Eclipse in 2003 I would just download the plug-ins I needed from the Eclipse website, unzip them into my plugins directory, and restart Eclipse. Sometime later, the Eclipse Update Manager was introduced to help you configure your Eclipse development environment providing the ability to update your existing features and plug-ins and search for new features. I have always found the Update Manager dialogs difficult to understand and use. Customizing the Update Manager to work with my Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications has also been very difficult.

When I heard about the new Equinox p2 provisioning system at EclipseCon this year I was excited that the Update Manager was finally being replaced. However, one thing I have learned when working with Eclipse is to take a “wait and see” approach before adopting the newest and improved APIs and methodologies. So, I have been reading various blogs to see what experiences developers are having implementing p2 in their products. Here are a couple of postings that make me think that p2 may not be quite ready for prime time:

Why Eclipse Equinox P2 Update Manager Sucks

Why Eclipse Equinox P2 Update Manager is not good enough for me yet #2

If you have had a positive experience replacing Update Manager functionality with p2 in your software product I would love to hear about it.

-Shawn

 

In Eclipse
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 Last week I attended the EclipseCon 2008 conference in Santa Clara, CA.  This was my third EclipseCon and by far my best experience.  This year there were a lot more technical sessions to choose from and overall the presentations seemed more professional than in the previous years.  I also liked that the Monday tutorials were included in the overall conference registration fee, rather than an extra charge.

I think the highlight of the conference was the key note speech of Dan Lyon (Fake Steve Jobs).   Here's a quote about Dan from the EclipseCon website.

"At his blog, fakesteve.blogspot.com, Lyons has captured the Zeitgeist, from perhaps the one place it is clearest-the point of view of Steve Jobs. In the tradition of Jonathan Swift and The Onion, he uses a pitch-perfect satirical style to deliver trenchant social commentary, reflecting on everything from the Cult of Steve and the rise of Apple ("Dude, I invented the friggin' iPhone. Perhaps you've heard of it!") to the ubiquitous influence of the tech industry on our everyday lives."

Another key note speaker was Sam Ramji, Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft.   I think of Microsoft as the Borg and their presence at EclipseCon as another strategy to assimilate the Eclipse Community and open source.

The sessions that I found most interesting were those discussing the Rich AJAX Platform (RAP), The Rich Client Platform (RCP), and the Web Tools Platform (WTP).  I particularly enjoyed the "GWT vs RAP" presentation by Mark Russell and Dan Rubel, discussing the differences between Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Eclipse Rich AJAX Platform (RAP) development.

If you are a software developer I would highly recommend you check out next year's EclipseCon.                 

In Open Source, Eclipse
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