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XML and Web Services In The News - 13 November 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
HEADLINES:
Free and Open Source Java
Staff, Sun Announcement
Sun Microsystems has announced open sourcing all of its Java platform
implementations under same license (called GPL Version 2) used by
the GNU/Linux operating system. Specifically Sun is announcing: (1)
GPL v2 license for Sun's Java SE (JDK) and Java ME implementations,
and adding this license to Sun's Java EE implementation. (2) First
release of code for the JDK and for Sun's Java ME implementation,
projects and communities. (3) Roadmap for future code releases and
community development. This singular act is the largest contribution
ever made to the free software community, and places Sun squarely at
the front of the open-source movement — as the single biggest
commercial contributor. This announcement celebrates the open sourcing
of the code base for one of the industry's most significant and
pervasive software platforms, to foster adoption in new markets, to
build broader communities, and fuel even more innovation. With over
3.8 billion Java technology enabled devices, Java technology has
already demonstrated explosive growth, appearing in volume nearly
everywhere. Now, as free software, the Java platform can address new
markets and be the engine of innovation for the next generation of
networked applications. One of Sun's primary goals in this move was
to grow the Java market, benefiting everyone — platforms, ISVs, OEMs,
customers of every type as the reach and richness of the Java market
grows. The company considered a number of different license choices,
including CDDL. While each of the open-source licenses considered had
a positive potential impact, the evaluation led to the conclusion that
using the GPL would result in the greatest incremental growth to the
Java market.
See also: the announcement
Sun Open Sources Java Under GPL
China Martens, InfoWorld
While it's no surprise that Sun Microsystems is making its core Java
platform freely available, what is somewhat unexpected is the vendor's
choice of open-source license. In all the open sourcing of its software
to date, Sun has used its own open-source license, CDDL (Common
Development and Distribution License). What Sun announced Monday is
the open-sourcing of both its Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE)
and its Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) under the GNU general
public license version 2 (GPLv2). Popular in the free and open-source
software (FOSS) community, the GPL which was created in 1989, then
revised as GPLv2 in 1991, is used by the Linux operating system, MySQL's
database and the Samba file-and-print server project. Compatibility was
a key driver for Sun in the decision to use GPL for Java, [Sun's Laurie]
Tolson said. In particular, the vendor is hoping that GNU/Linux
distributions such as Debian and Ubuntu will bundle Java into their
operating systems and so take the development environment into new
markets. At present, the plan is to offer the open-source versions of
Java SE and Java ME under GPLv2. But Sun is open to adding another
open-source license should the vendor not see rapid uptake of Java
under GPL, Tolson said. At the same time, Sun will continue to provide
commercial versions of its Java technologies for those users seeking
paid support. Sun also committed to providing dual licensing for Project
GlassFish, its open-source application server initiative based on the
Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE). Underway since June 2005,
GlassFish was available under CDDL. Come the first quarter of next year,
GlassFish will also be licensed under GPLv2 to make it easier for
developers to distribute versions of Java SE, Java EE and Java ME
together.
XHTML Role Attribute Module
Mark Birbeck, Shane McCarron (et al., eds), W3C Technical Report
Members of W3C's HTML Working Group have published a second Working
Draft version of "XHTML Role Attribute Module: A Module to Support
Role Classification of Elements." The XHTML Role Attribute defined in
this specification allows the author to annotate XML Languages with
machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an
element. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-
side processing, and complex data description. The module is designed
to be used to help extend the scope of XHTML-family markup languages
into new environments. It has been developed in conjunction with the
accessibility community and other groups to make it easier to describe
the semantic meaning of XHTML-family document content. The attribute
can be integrated into any markup language based upon XHTML
Modularization. A conforming XHTML Role Attribute Module document is
a document that requires only the facilities described as mandatory
in this specification and the facilities described as mandatory in
its host language. When the XHTML Role Attribute Module is included
in a host language, all of the facilities required in this specification
must be included in the host language. In addition, the attribute
defined in this specification must be included in the content model
of the host language. A conforming user agent must support all of the
features required in this specification.
Open-Source Project Treads on Google Maps Turf
Andy McCue, CNET News.com
Volunteer "citizen cartographers" are aiming to take on the likes of
Google Maps and Ordnance Survey by creating a free, open-source wiki-
style map of the planet. The OpenStreetMap (OSM) mapping data is
collected by volunteers using GPS devices to record their movements
as they drive, cycle or walk along all the roads in a particular area.
OSM was started two years ago by Steve Coast because of the legal and
technical restrictions on the use of other maps such as Google's or
those of Britain's Ordnance Survey. "This data is freely available,"
Coast said. "Google buys commercially restricted data. It can't make
that available for free." Coast's gripe is that in most countries
mapping is done by government agencies that make money from that data
by selling it back to businesses and the public, apart from the U.S.
where it has to be made available for free. OSM relies on volunteers
to collect and upload the GPS data that creates the maps. There are
more than 3,600 contributors doing around 50 uploads a day. OSM also
holds regular "mapping parties" where people descend on a particular
area to map it over the course of a weekend. Recent areas in the U.K.
that have been mapped by volunteers include the Isle of Wight, the
county of Rutland, the Surrey Hills and urban areas such as Bath and
Reading. Once the raw GPS data is uploaded it can also be edited wiki-
style by other users, who can add information such as street names.
Eclipse DSDP Announces Three Milestone Releases
Staff, Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the
implementation of a universal software development platform, today
announced three milestone releases within the Eclipse Device Software
Development Platform (DSDP). Founded in 2005 as a top-level Eclipse
project, the mission of DSDP is to create an open, extensible, scalable
and standards-based development platform to address the needs of the
device software market. This series of releases demonstrates the growing
momentum and diversity of projects in DSDP. Created by Wind River, the
DSDP project now has over forty committers from ten companies and
contains more than 550,000 lines of code. The three DSDP projects
achieving milestone releases include (1) Target Management 1.0: the
goal of Target Management is to create data models and frameworks to
configure and manage embedded systems, their connections and services.
Since there are many different vendors and solutions in the device
software space, the main charter of target management is to provide
data models and frameworks that are flexible and open enough for vendor-
specific extensions. For the 1.0 release, sample implementations will
be provided for TCP/IP connections, FTP data transfer and GDB remote
launching in the CDT environment. (2) Embedded Rich Client Platform
(eRCP): the goal of this project is to extend the Eclipse Rich Client
Platform (RCP) to embedded devices. eRCP enables the same Eclipse
development model used to create applications on desktop machines to
also be used on devices. The project includes a subset of RCP components
tailored to mobile devices. (3) Mobile Tools for the Java Platform
(MTJ): the goal of MTJ is to extend the Eclipse platform to support
mobile device Java application development. The purpose is to develop
both frameworks that can be extended by tool vendors and tools that can
be used by third party mobile java application developers.
Write Reliable Clients for SOAP/HTTP Web Services
Shailesh K. Mishra, IBM developerWorks
In a normal Web service invocation scenario, a Web service client
prepares the call and invokes the Web service. If temporary system
errors, network failures, or service unavailability occur, the data
used in preparation of the call is lost. You can save this data in a
number of ways. One way is to use a SOAP message handler, even though
handlers are used most commonly for SOAP header processing. SOAP
headers are used to carry contextual data for a request, for example
Quality of Service (QoS) requests such as security and transactionality.
In these cases you can use handlers to read the SOAP body. This article
shows how to use handlers to cache the body, use this cached data in
case of failure conditions, and then write a reliable Web service
client. Using a static field to cache the request body isn't a
sophisticated and scalable technique, but you can use any good mechanism
for caching.
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