Tag Archives: apache

Open Source – It’s not just about Linux, Apache HTTP & MySQL


February 5, 2013 By Mark Troester

Although the hype of open source has been eclipsed by the cloud, mobile and big data, you could argue that open source remains the biggest productivity driver for IT. If you ask most people what technologies they think about when it comes to open source, they’ll probably mention Linux, or the Apache HTTP Server. Or if they are thinking data, they’ll mention MySQL, or big data technologies like Hadoop. There are entire stacks of open source infrastructure technologies like LAMP and vendors like RedHat, Cloudera, and Zend have stepped into help organizations manage open source infrastructure.

But what about the components that developers use to build applications? Many organizations that we talk to assemble their applications from open source components. They no longer write a lot of custom code, they stitch together components from various sources – in many cases 80-90% of modern applications are made up of components. This may seem surprising until you think of the various types of components that are used to develop  applications: utility classes, logging, caching, database access, testing frameworks, web frameworks, collection handling, etc. Why develop those feature from scratch when you can reuse components freely available on the Web?

So why compare Linux, Apache HTTP Server, and MySQL with open source components like junit, commons-collections, log4j? I think it helps illustrate the need for a dramatically different management approach.

When it comes to major decisions like operating systems, web/application servers & databases, many organizations…

  • Architecture Review -  conduct a comprehensive technology selection process driven by the architecture team… .vs. OSS components that are often selected by individual developers.
  • Vendor Selection - go through a deliberate vendor selection process, including RFI/RFP, POCs, etc… vs. OSS components where the project team is not vetted.
  • License Indemnification – protected from potential license issues via vendor indemnification… vs. OSS components with transitive dependencies on components with problematic licenses.
  • Contractual Procurement - officially contract and procure software through purchasing departments… vs. OSS components that are “free”.
  • Production Monitoring - monitor as part of an overall enterprise level BAM strategy… vs. OSS components that are often hidden in plain site (organizations don’t even know what they have).
  • Financial Budget - built into the regular IT budgeting cycle… vs. OSS components – again, aren’t they “free”.
  • Updates/Patches - update periodically via a pre-planned patch / update process… vs. OSS components where regular updates are not even considered.

Although organizations probably don’t think risk management per se when making major open source infrastructure decisions, that really drives their decision process – minimize risk by selecting infrastructure software that is reliable, easily maintained and cost effective.

Shouldn’t you be doing the same at the application level? With components making up the bulk of your applications, it makes sense to manage the components in a systematic fashion. But you can’t use the same process for OSS components as you do for operating systems, databases, etc.

How to start? We call it Component Lifecycle Management. Stay tuned as we introduce this concept over the coming weeks and months.

Flexmojos Two Years Later


March 17, 2010 By Marvin Froeder

On March 18 2008 I checked in the first bits of code for Flexmojos.  Two years later, here we are: Flexmojos now provides first-class support for Flex and AIR development within Apache Maven. It allows for Maven to compile, optimize, and test Flex SWF, Flex SWC, Air SWF and Air SWC and Air files.

We are celebrating this anniversary with a dual release of Flexmojos 3.6 and Flexmojos 4.0-pre-alpha-1.

Flexmojos 3.6 Release

Flexmojos 3.6 most relevant changes:

  • Add a new source-view goal which goal produces a syntax highlighted version of the as, mxml and html if they are bundled in a SWF (thanks to Julien Nicoulaud for this contribution)
  • Some fixes to Flexbuilder metadata generation
  • Add support to Flex SDK 4.0.0.13555 and newer
  • Add support for building applications using Flashplayer 10.1 and Air 2.0
  • New configuration includeAsClasses for SWC compilation. Wildcard support for includeClasses
  • Generator mojo now supports package translation between Java and generated AS3
  • Support for granite generator 2.1 (thanks to Kyle Lebel)

For a full list of changes on 3.6, visit this page: https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/FLEXMOJOS/fixforversion/10629

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Why We Chose the GPL for Nexus


January 15, 2010 By Jason van Zyl

Since the center of the Maven community lies within communities that value the Apache license, I feel compelled to add some explanation for people who want to know more about what went into this decision.   In this post, I’m going to walk you through what went into this decision and talk about some of the general ground rules we’re following when it comes to making license decisions.

Why we chose the GPL license for Nexus

Normally we would have used a BSD/MIT/Apache license for software that we develop.   This is what we’re used to, with most of our developers having been active in the Apache community for years, we’re all very familiar with the philosophy behind this license.   When we announced that Nexus was going to be released under a GPL license, some of our colleagues wanted to know how a group of Apache participants decided to use the GNU Public License? Continue reading →

Nexus: Improving Maven Central and Supporting the Maven Ecosystem


January 13, 2010 By Jason van Zyl

Nexus is more than just a repository manager.  It is a project that has been developed using the same underlying infrastructure of Maven, and it has forced us to think about the different ways in which the components that comprise Maven can be integrated with other, more complex systems.   It is a critical step toward a more mature Maven ecosystem which starts to encompass much more than just software builds.   You can think of Nexus as the second major project to emerge from the Maven ecosystem – an ecosystem which includes both commercial interests as well as open source volunteers and community participants.

Sonatype is focused on improving the foundational infrastructure which will allow us to improve the quality of artifacts and their accompanying metadata in Maven Central and Maven repositories around the world.  A lot of this is not especially glamorous work and though many people complain about the state of some of the Maven repositories, very few take action.    Here are some of the things Sonatype is doing with Nexus to improve the state of the Maven ecosystem and expand its scope.

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Apache Portals Simplifies Releases with Nexus Staging Suite


January 11, 2010 By admin

nexus-smallIn this guest post, Ate Douma, Lead Architect at Hippo, Apache member, and committer for the Apache Portals project, discusses how Nexus Professional’s Staging Suite is used to support open source projects such as Apache Jetspeed.

Apache Portals is a collaborative software development project dedicated to providing robust, full-featured, commercial-quality, and freely available Portal-related software on a wide variety of platforms and programming languages. This project is managed in cooperation with a number of people worldwide (both independent and company-affiliated experts), who use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop Portal software and related documentation.