pre-built EJB components
The case is simple, and it has a history: build functional applications that are cross-platform, and revive the model of Java to be write-once-run across multiple platforms. This was done, in some form, by Theory Center before they were acquired by BEA in 1999, and it allowed WebLogic to take the early lead, that ultimately led to their sizable cash-out, in the form of the Oracle acquisition. Nothing made IT managers happier than to see something actually working on top of these Internet operating systems, that were to be known as application servers. They could see what they were investing in, if Theory Center worked, then their own development efforts could also work. I was working on iPlanet's competitor to WL, and never once did I see a deployment of Theory Center, yet many of the largest financial services firms and teleco's, deployed WebLogic in their environments. Some will say that application servers never lived up to their promise of integrating all of Java, in to one common platform, that could rival Microsoft's datacenter offerings. But that is what is available today: a belief that cloud computing will re-orient the data-center like no other offering brought forth by enterprise vendors in the last twenty years. It is the Internet taken to its natural destination, and it is custom-made for application server vendors to take their offerings in to the cloud. The vendors, themselves, are coming at from different angles. JBoss is the lead environment for Red Hat Linux, and OS that desires to see the market go cloud, it is Oracle that will lead with applications for intra-environment deployment, and IBM will offer up some customization to argue for their own tools to be deployed as cloud infrastructure. Even Spring Source is in the cloud game with VMWare having invented the enterprise cloud architecture. What do all of these have in common?
They all are lacking the Theory Center moment, when you can walk in to a customer and visibly demonstrate what is being explained in technical terms. The promise of pre-built functionality has always been on the minds of the vendors, and customers have their own in-house set of components that run certain functionality, and that can be re-used across multiple projects. What is needed is a firm, a coalition of firms, or a series of start-up moves to re-kindle the fire originally set by the promise of the EJB component model. Pre-built EJBs are what would give the cloud that discernible advantage over the Azure promise of integration across the platform. Windows Server is acquiring the enterprise, slowly but surely, with 50% of deployments worldwide having gone to WS, and 20% with Linux, and 30% other. In order for the remaining non-Windows 50% to compete, it needs these pre-built components to show the power of Java's development model, and work across the vendors to prove the deployment model. Whether that be IBM Global Services, or Oracle's Support Network, or JBoss consultants, worldwide, the component model needs a new life. This can be done in basic steps toward a full-fledged platform, that would deliver shopping cart, credit card transactions, other shopping features for consumers, B2B transactions like supply chain management, integration with all sorts of data sources are ready for pre-built functionality, and beyond.
The best way to deliver this is on top of Glassfish, as the Reference Implementation for JEE 6 and 7, it can showcase the advanced cloud features of Enterprise Java. Pre-built components would give customers something to work with as they investigate the business model of going with Java over Azure in the cloud build-out. Microsoft will be forced to retaliate, but they do not have an industry that has committed to delivering specification after another, with partners, that compete for the same accounts. The Microsoft components will be more centered at Google, anyway, their Great Plains product-set has been focused on ERP and other large functionality efforts, not micro-enough to be componentized in time for Java components to build a user base that will set them off on the cloud projects, that are certain to spring up, as IT managers look to new models to improve delivery of their respective employers' web offerings. Get EJBs back in the discussion, and integrate with other non-EJB models through JAX, and see the application server vendors regain the argument that has been eroded by years of over-hype, now is the time to deliver on the hype of Java on the server-side. Right now, it is all a process of upgrades and maintenance decisions, make it about the cloud and see new models and new opportunities rise to the surface.
This cause has been called for before, it has been dis-credited, and to be honest, is like kryptonite to IT everywhere. The promise of pre-buuilt components, a long-time Holy Grail in development, is a real possibility in deployment, today, with the clouds becoming the leading selling point of vendors, and the leading interest area of customers. How to make these clouds work? Microsoft has it figured out with their complete package of development and integration among a wide-swath of products. All Java needs is a development environment, pre-built components, and application servers to compliment the data sources and integration efforts already in place across the enterprise. There is no need to sell new platforms, or new models, the app servers are the cloud OS, always have been, they were just disguised as dot-com enablers, in their earlies incarnation, but they power the Internet. Where would IT be without enterprise Java, it would be stuck in non-standard, non-compatible environments, without any hope of achieving acquisition or other-wise integration, it would be much costlier to run an IT environment, without application servers. Re-charge the debate around Java with pre-built EJBs, that work across cloud environments, make it a competitive marketplace for selecting components, that can work together, and turn the power back to developers within enterprises. The cloud will shake out from there. Without it, there is no functionality to sell on, and allows Microsoft and Azure all the advantages of integration without standards. All of the Java vendors would benefit, and Glassfish would have a standing chance of becoming one of those deployment environments ready for the cloud. This is Oracle's best opportunity for the cloud, beyond whatever WebLogic does to become Fusion for the Oracle Cloud, a pre-built set of Java specific functionality would be a major starting point for how Java vendors are to approach the cloud. It would translate to benefits across the Java ecosystem.
Sun software spin-off
If its not going to be used to sell hardware, then it should be given its own life, outside of Oracle, its wasted value, just to be specification Reference Implementations, that is comical, its industry-grade, and can stand on its own, it should be set free. MySQL, SSO, ESB, JEE, even NetBeans could sustain a whole new company, and these are redundant assets within the parent company's offering, they are not investment worthy, so why not let someone else do something with it. Cannibalization is possible, but considering the pay-back on green environments it could get to and turn-back in to maintenance revenue with a simple agreement from parent and spin-off, there is very little logic that just letting them wither on the vine in the argument that Sun was bought for hardware alone, and it is in keeping with the long-term principles of holding off Great Plains in medium-sized accounts. I have said this all before with some degree of implementation plan, like my earlier logic on a fork on Google Code, i dont need to see that exactly happen, but it needs room to breathe, and right now the oxygen on Glassfish, in particular, is being cut-off from ExaLogic sales push. This is not the only value of Sun, more can be done, and the only way I can see anything getting near its true value is for a spin-off.
This reminds me a lot of iPlanet. Back then, when the Sun-Netscape Alliance was in its first year, there was a lot of hype for the Sun investment in Netscape products. I was a kid, on my first job out of grad school, and actually advocated for an IPO, i was naive, but eventually fell in to line that it would work better as a vertical solution. And it did, it served Sun well, even though it caused us to work over-time to clean up the iAS 6.0 mess, it served Sun well. That didn't show up in the acquisition price, but Sun would have been virtually a worthless chip designer had it not been for the middleware assets. Oracle is doing its best to revive Sparc, and i applaud them for that, I think they should continue doing it, its great for the Valley, great to overcome Google's black-hole of data center design support, other companies need non-Google cloud data centers, and Oracle with Sun hardware fits the bill. Good job whoever worked on that, even Solaris seems to be safe for existing accounts. But the other side of Sun is breath-takingly innovative. All the middleware assets are better than JBoss and Spring Source, and by not addressing their value, Oracle is giving legit competitors a little more breathing room. Just keep 51%, split up 49% with investors who are savvy on enterprise software, and let some employees have a period of time where they could be employees of Oracle, still, while working on the start-up of acquired Sun software assets. Its really straight-forward, and is custom-made for an aggressive company like Oracle. It would appease the Sun employees who are not fortunate enough to work on Fusion, and give a little energy to the growing international monstrosity that is Oracle. It would simplify things for everyone.
Customers would know that they have the support of Oracle, if they invest in this new iPlanet-like company. Call it the Oracle-Sun Alliance, or whatever, just get some value out of it. Its like Oracle executives would rather keep WebLogic as the only option to punish customers, they are eventually going to get something better in IIS, .Net, and Great PLains, when it is all rolled-in to one environment on VS, only Glassfish stands in the way of this happening. Dont let it die out of fear of the unknown, like WebLogic will be dead if there is some innovation, WebLogic is not going anywhere, it is the development environment for BPM on the ERP apps, that is huge, like really huge, but it cant be expected to also fend off more nimble cloud purveyors as well, that is not logical. Oracle needs both, but that is not what is happening now, customers see the messaging about departmental apps, so no matter what Glassfish people tell Oracle sales reps, there is no way to get in the customer conversations, it is as an after-thought in Oracle strategic direction. There is no reason this should be the status quo, there is room to move forward, but it takes fresh thinking, and see the challengers as real, dont get caught flat-footed on your flank-side.
a primer on Glassfish
Its predecessors in Netscape Application Server and iPlanet Application Server did not work, and so it took the re-write of the Reference Implementation of the Sun ONE Application Server to provide the roadmap that would lead to a stable app server platform, that could be open sourced and turned in to Glassfish. Now, it is being systemically dismantled in the hands of Oracle as all the real money is in the big-ticket product lines of WebLogic, Oracle DB, and PeopleSoft ERP, and no one seems to notice. This leaves a market where only JBoss is sticking to the Enterprise Java specification, and competing platforms such as Spring Source turn their nose at Oracle, and build cloud environments. This is a shame, after all the effort to get a viable app server platform from Sun, it is being killed from within, with no real sales strategy, and little in the way of marketing support. Something should be done, but the Oracle employees charged with the success of Glassfish, as they were at Sun have not come out with anything more than technical analysis, and do not understand the marketplace's changing tide toward the cloud, waiting instead for Java EE 7, while everyone else shuns Oracle's customer-hosted-only model.
What can be done? Forking with unlimited resources would be fun, the ESB is top-notch, the EJB container is fast, and MySQL is well regarded to give customers a complete deployment platform for the cloud, and it would be taking on a long-time nuisance in the throes of developer interests. Does anyone anywhere have positive experiences with Oracle developer support, they simply dont do it, their site is fractured and useless with case examples of successful deployments, or easy-to-use documentation, like how the Glassfish team initially set its sights on, and still we get no word from anyone at Oracle that they plan to sell Glassfish to their enterprise base. Put simply Glassfish is more potentially disruptive than anything that WebLogic will do with Fusion. And still no action, Oracle is well positioned to dominate enterprise computing, both hardware and software after getting Sun for a negligible amount, so maybe it is time to take them on, and put Glassfish back in the running for leading enterprise cloud environment.
All of this is well documented but what could be hugely different than anything that a previous fork has done, is actually put a company behind it, and pay the developers that work on it, not allow all of the benefits go to a single entity, though i would propose a company to organize all of the efforts, whats to stop getting paid on commission and equity. I have proposed this before, but i wanted to signal the charge again, as Oracle pays little attention to anything other than Fusion, the DB, and the Google lawsuit. What if Fusion never delivers, and Glassfish is forked, could not Oracle's huge customer base be primed for a move off old WebLogic and convert them to cloud purveyors on Glassfish? I dont know what you guys are working on currently, absent an Android app, the most lucrative field in IT is in the enterprise, and Glassfish is ripe for the taking, so consider your options well when investing your coding talents in to community efforts, and do not waste your time on Oracle's Glassfish, go for a forked version, just like they did with Linux off of Red Hat. It is doable, and the time is right to take Oracle to task for its opposition to the developer community. Join us, and begin the cloud revolution via Glassfish.
will Glassfish survive?
i am just trying to reconcile how the better product receives 1/10th the resources, i mean WebLogic was dying before the acquisition, JBoss had it beat, and then Oracle picks it up for a song, somewhat cheaper than they got Sun, in relative terms, and turns it in to the base of Fusion, and ERP, and invests all this money in to it to become the enterprise platform, all while Glassfish was getting good, and ready to take-down JBoss, or at least take on Spring Source, and then the acquisition, and all funding dried up, all OSS community participation went away, and now its just a small division in an over-grown company, that has not innovated in a decade, but instead relies on its monopoly of the core piece of enterprise computing, and few hostile actions against erstwhile allies in the struggle with Microsoft, and it comes undone, Glassfish must be set free in order for Enterprise Java to survive, it will be irrelevant if it just goes the way of the Reference Implementation, it is too valuable for that, and so this is what i propose:
- Glassfish and MySQL spun off, with SSO, in to a separate company with 49% control by Oracle, and 51% control by all of us who will sign-up to the project, evenly divided among new and tiered for subsequent employees, but the company will always retain a bigger share of the control than Oracle, so as to not withhold innovations for the sake of the larger mother company.
- This will give Oracle a competitive wedge to go in to Red Hat, IBM, VMWare, and Microsoft accounts leading with Glassfish, to be ported to WebLogic when the time is right, for enterprise features, but build out Glassfish to be a cloud purveyor, so as to lead the market with Oracle benefiting without losing out on the focus of the internal sales force.
- Glassfish will in turn focus on becoming an intranet cloud provider, complete with hardware reference implementations, and core software builds on top of Linux, as ordered and copied and forked and implemented and enhanced by Oracle, so all Glassfish deployments will run on Oracle Enterprise Linux and Sun hardware, every last one of them.
- Oracle will provide the funding and make the determination when a VC should be brought in for help, if desired, the employees of the Glassfish/MySQL/SSO company will focus on delivering product and let the expert financial team at Oracle chart the future for its investment, with a solid understanding of the long-term picture, and the standing of Java if the company were to succeed.
- McNealy, Schwartz, Polese, Dooley, and Safa Catz on the Board with broad oversight of the direction of the company and an eye toward further integration with Oracle, further development of the Enterprise Java specification, and further build-out of clouds for Oracle's customer base that would like to look in to the opportunity available with the economics of hosted infrastructure.
- headquarters in GRand Rapids, Michigan with costs of office building, relocation of employees, and subsidization of international employees to work on the OSS projects, need to pay developers well, as this is a long-term view with no initial exit strategy available through stocks, as this company will not go public for an extended period of time.
all of this is accomplished with the introduction of a little risk-reward analysis by Oracle, that needs a jump-start and prove why it has been the biggest financial supporter of Java, and why it has earned the repsect of those who thought it could not innovate out of the dot-com bomb, and the resulting recession, they have proven to be the best bet in enterprise computing, and they have earned their chance at going for the biggest de-thronement in the take-down of Microsoft across the enterprise cloud infrastructure, with Linux, Java, Glassfish, and MySQL, it is all within reach, just $10M to start, open communication channels, and a little trust in the process, and it will be all there for the taking, its time to kick-start Java again, and nothing would do that better than GLassfish...,
glassfish as cloud platform
The really impressive thing about the Glassfish 3.1 release is the position it puts the product-line in to deliver on a whole new open platform for Oracle to pursue over-time non-established customer bases, in all target verticals, customers or in many cases, enterprises, that have not committed their entire infrastructure to Oracle or SAP, or IBM for that matter. What it does, in a short-term sense, is provide the Oracle sales force with something that can be sold in to 'green' environments, where there is no established leader among the mis-matched product acquisitions that said businesses have made, on a plethora of software companies' product-lines. It reinforces Oracle as a provider of leading-edge Enterprise Java features, that seem to only be getting better for both developers and administrators, alike, as Glassfish 3.1 offers the scalability offerings that will get customers interested beyond departmental applications, that are just looking for something cheap and easy. What Oracle can now say to the thousands of customers that are looking at JBoss for standardization or even SpringSource, is that there is now something better with Oracle's support plan. It will continue to be a process of differentiating the comparative features of WebLogic with Glassfish, but by turning to the cloud for full featured deployable component-ized apps, Glassfish 3.1 will carve out a sizeable and growing niche for developers to understand and for administrators to test, while maintaining a share of budget for advanced, next-stage deployments.
The cloud has been a moving target, transforming from on-line storage to app customization in order to take the features of scalable deployment to the next generation of mixing and matching applications, and parcels of applications to run different features of a web platform. Glassfish 3.1 delivers all of the functionality to look at what could come next, in the development of the cloud, as usability is delivered in clusters, and integration with development environments, that are standard to JEE, for cost-effective testing in environments that are beginning to move to the cloud for deployments. It would not be initially beneficial to Oracle to run a cloud based on Glassfish, though it is conceivable that customers of Oracle could do just that, and by maintaining increased cross-platform support, but only with the core, Glassfish remains a stellar alternative to the other open source offerings in Enterprise Java, including some of Oracle's biggest competitors to emerging markets. Oracle is well positioned to offer a feature-complete cloud offering, that would rather than cannibalize sales of WebLogic could actually open doors, in to new business environments, particularly those that are not somewhat invested in Enterprise Java, as of yet.
The next stage is taking the product-line to the positioning stage, and really offer an alternative off of JBoss and Spring Source, which continue to dominate the standard and non-standard environments, respectively. Oracle would be well-served to open up about Glassfish's potential as a deployment platform for next-stage applications in the cloud, and as Enterprise Java continues to lead the standardization process, as Java continues to maintain its role in the enterprise, there is a need to spell-out how customers should view the two-tiered application server offering, but not to detail, that is still being worked out. Instead, Glassfish 3.1 marks a point where Oracle can actually support two deployment platforms, alongside WebLogic, though it needs to be aggressive with both platforms, the Glassfish opportunity is to gather enough momentum with developers, that has continued to build since v. 1, and move to marketing the feature-set as being ideal for the cloud, and get some named customers on-board that will use Glassfish for reasons that can be duplicated in the cloud. Things that enterprises don't typically do, but considering the economics of an OSS-model, would actually benefit certain customers with knowledge on deployment architectures.
This will take reference architectures on Sun hardware, it will take more-detailed deployment guides on various types of applications, also more competitive analysis on how it stacks up with other OSS offerings, and sales guides for when a customer states something about looking at next-generation development and/or cloud deployment. Oracle's customers are, for the majority, savvy enough to understand when one product-line is tailored for their needs, and Glassfish 3.1 meets the requirements of those forward looking businesses and organizations that need something fast and now, while giving them a deployment guide for when certain aspects of their development match a broader roll-out with scalability requirements. It is not too soon to spell out the differentiating value of Glassfish 3.1 as soon as possible to gather more coverage from the customers and media on why the product-line yields what has been missing from Enterprise Java in the last few years: a distinct leader on new features and advanced deployment capabilities. The cloud is but a term to use in conversation, the real work is only accomplished when detailed documentation provides additional language and materials to realistically put the features of Glassfish 3.1 in perspective. This is the call for Oracle to do, and the time is right to transcend the standard marketing, to take the product-line of Glassfish to new levels, appearing to carve out a respectable niche among paying customers.
google/oracle settlement proposal
In the minds of Oracle, they got screwed on the acquisition of Sun, it was a mercy move, and they were the only ones with the cash to save Sun from just going bankrupt, so they bought it and dont have any use for anything in software, except that everyone uses Java, so if Google is going to use Java then yes, they should have to pay, and the terms of the agreement should be for Oracle to acquire the designs of Google's flawless datacenter operations, so Oracle can productize under the Sun brand, and in return Google will get Glassfish and use of Java, or perhaps just the right to utilize Java is necessary to settle this, i'll do Glassfish for Oracle at the right price, but sooner or later people there are going to have to respect me for keeping Glassfish alive this long, all that was me on the way out the door, nothing was gained that i did not start, so try and discredit me and you will lose that battle, only i can run Glassfish, and i know there are people in Oracle who probably know that, as well, so whats the wait, those are the terms: Google gets Java, Oracle gets Datacenter Designs, and i'll take Glassfish, why not, who would be threatened by that?
google chrome OS
soon enough, i will be purchasing a Google Chrome laptop, based on the new operating system from the internet company that seems to be threatening every other vendor at present, so it is with optimism that i look to their new OS to feature all the aspects of web computing in terms that i relate to, like always connectedness, transparent pricing, and easy access for apps that i utilize in frequency, like Blogger, Twitter, Picasa, Gmail, and Youtube, enough to make me a potentially habitual netbook, or as these will be called: smartbook user for the foreseeable future, determined as i am to work with Google on Glassfish, instead of with Oracle, i will probably very much look to work more on Google Code and Sites to build-out my proposal to them to participate in the evolutions of the middleware space as they are the only vendor with the initiative to satisfy my requirement of being competitive from the word go, just as i have done in previous endeavors in the application server marketplace, so investing in a Chrome OS computer is a no-brainer for me, for if i want to learn everything i can about Google, i have to understand their products, even without an Android phone, i can learn a lot from them about their plans for new computing techniques through the base of their future OSS development in every corner of Chrome.,
basically what it is is a browser with a backbone that sits on the machine, and executes code on the periphery, so that all executables are done following a command from the web, very much like a traditional browser but without the overhead of a standard OS, and there will be none in the way of saving to the desktop as i am want to do, so i will have to utilize Google Docs ever more, to portray my writing as more than just blogs, if i want to get past this form of free-hand, commas and elipses, included, i need to expand my book, and write professionally, in addition to writing for my own entertainment, as i get little in the way of efficient feedback, so i dont know if anyone is really paying attention to all the topics that i write about, bit by bit i am becoming one of the most prolific writers on the web, with writing accounts spanning the spectrum getting my activities across, in a timely manner, and advocating for all sorts of ideas, from Lilith to tennis, to hiphop just back to software, and all sorts of topics on music and basketball, sometimes, enough to satisfy another requirement of my day to stay engaged, and not fall off the radar of acceptable logic, like i am sometimes inclined to do until i find the path again to sanity, and i think the Chrome OS smartbook, will overtly help me achieve this goal, sustaining me as i try to reach some other heady goals....
i think i could build a Google competitor if given some resources, like some cash money to invest in a couple of companies that i have in mind, and build the Glassfish codebase from scratch, based on what is currently available, amidst the mainstream acceptability of the current product-line is a very real sense that things are stagnating for Glassfish endeavors, much to the delight of those currently in power, and only i can save it, and if Google wants to do that with me, but until that day, i will continue to track toward learning Google's entire ecosystem, and this now includes Chrome, which i have used as a browser over time, and now will get the OS, if they have enough supply, we will see i will look for it on day one, starting this month, and then will see what i can build from there....
