Dr. Dobb's Journal August, 2004
BEA and the Apache Software Foundation have jointly announced Apache Beehive, an open-source project based on the runtime application framework from WebLogic Workshop. The project's stated aim is to create a J2EE environment capable of challenging Microsoft's .NET Framework for ease of development and portability. Developers using Beehive "will be able to create web services, web applications, and Java controls using Workshop's metadata-driven programming model, and then run these components on any J2EE application server" (http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/beehive/).
The BEA-donated code includes the Controls architecture, which adds support for JSR 175 metadata to the JavaBeans component model. It aims both to simplify and to standardize the creation of back-end resource access components, "So defining and configuring client access to J2EE resources can be a property or wizard-driven process, and can be represented using visual design metaphors." Similarly, the NetUI Page Flow subproject uses JSR 175 metadata to provide a visual development model for Struts web applications. Beehive also addresses web services and XMLBeans development.
A new report issued by the Microsoft-funded Alexis de Tocqueville Institution alleges that Linus Torvalds stole the original Linux code from MINIX and other UNIX sources. Andrew Tanenbaum, author of MINIX, calls the article "patent nonsense," and Torvalds himself jokes that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy must be credited as the true authors of Linux. However, in the wake of this report and the ongoing SCO suit—which also claims that proprietary code has been improperly included in Linux—Linus Torvalds and kernel maintainer Andrew Morton are requiring new code submissions to be accompanied by a certificate from each of the contributors. The Developer's Certificate of Origin (http://www.osdl.org/newsroom/press_releases/ 2004/2004_05_24_beaverton.html) affirms that the developers have the right to contribute the code under an open-source license, and lets code submissions be tracked through the kernel tree.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans has opened nominations for the 2005 National Medal of Technology, given annually to individuals, teams, or companies "to recognize those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness, standard of living, and quality of life through technological innovation, and to recognize those who have made substantial contributions to strengthening the Nation's technological workforce." Individuals, teams, and companies or divisions are all eligible for nomination. Past honorees include Dean Kamen, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, and IBM. Nominations (http://www.technology.gov/Medal/Nomination.htm) will be accepted until July 28.
Mike Milinkovich, formerly the vice president of OracleAS technical services, has been named executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. Milinkovich is no stranger to IDE programming. Before serving at Oracle, he worked on the Smalltalk IDE ENVY/Developer. More widely noted, however, is what Milinkovich hasn't done—worked at IBM. "I have an understanding and perspective that is certainly not IBM-centric," Milinkovich says, pointing out that his previous employers (Oracle and, before that, WebGain) were "very much competitors to IBM."
Milinkovich's background is seen as significant, as the Eclipse Foundation's independence from IBM is still disputed. Before Milinkovich was appointed, Sun Microsystems noted in an open letter, "The organization's bylaws have given the director an unusual amount of power to form projects and assign resources. Will the director be an impartial guardian of the community (or be partial)?" Sun had no official comment on Milinkovich's appointment, but Milinkovich said that he had exchanged e-mails with executives at Sun, and "the response that I got back was a warm one."
Intel has announced plans to release its next-generation firmware foundation code (the successor to the 20-year old PC BIOS) and a firmware driver development kit under the Common Public License (CPL) open-source license. Under the CPL, any change in the foundation code and DDK made by one company must be visible and available to all. The next-generation firmware project is an implementation of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI).