Open Source for Small Business

After two years of full-time development, SpringSource has contributed its open source OSGi-style dm Server project to Eclipse.org expecting the move to eventually simplify the widgetry generally used for very complex enterprise applications and broaden its base of users.

SpringSource CTO Adrian Colyer figures that if mainstream developers – who just want to build an enterprise application as quickly as possible, and with as little hassle as possible – can be enticed into the fold then enterprise OSGi can become the de facto approach as OSGi already has for writing infrastructure software.

The server will be part of the Eclipse RT top-level project and nicknamed Virgo. The GPL license that SpringSource has used for it will be changed to the Eclipse Public License (EPL).

The code sent to Eclipse is a new 2.0 release described as a “major milestone” and a “significant amount of intellectual property.”

It represents a state-of-the-art server platform for modular enterprise application development based on OSGi and the Spring Dynamic Modules (now standardized as the OSGi Blueprint Service) programming model that divides Java applications into components or modules. At runtime these components can be added, removed or updated.

The follow-on 2.1 release will be developed and released by Eclipse.org.

SpringSource explains in a blog that it picked Eclipse because the dm Server builds on, and tightly integrates with, Eclipse Equinox, the reference implementation of the OSGi Service Platform.

Besides, “the recently proposed Gemini project at Eclipse.org will host reference implementations of many of the key enterprise OSGi specifications supported by Virgo – including the SpringSource-led Gemini Web Container and Gemini Blueprint Service projects. The dm Server development tools are also all Eclipse-based.”

From Eclipse’s perspective, it claims, adopting the project will forward its goal of “establishing Eclipse runtime technology as a leading open source runtime platform.”