Open-Xchange goes Express, sheds its SUSE roots
240395
Blog: Open-Xchange is releasing an easy to use, SMB-focused version of its email/collaboration software. What's particularly interesting is that it's built on Ubuntu, not SUSE, despite the founders' history with SUSE.
89340
Blog: The software giant follows through on better support for dynamic, or scripting, languages for Web development.
512802
(InfoWorld) - Looking to bolster AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and development of Web 2.0 applications, the OpenAjax Alliance on Wednesday plans to introduce a project that addresses AJAX interoperability issues. The alliance, which features vendors such as IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, will roll out its OpenAjax Hub project. This effort involves developing a standard set of JavaScript functionality to tackle problems with interoperability arising when multiple AJAX libraries are used within the same Web page. With the hub, multiple AJAX run-time libraries would be able to coexist on a page. Version 1.0 of the OpenAjax Hub is planned for completion by the end of this calendar year; integration of the hub into AJAX toolkits expected in early 2007. "[In] today's world, AJAX libraries in general believe they own the entire browser [and] JavaScript environment, that they're the first one and the last one, so they assume a consequence-free environment where they can do whatever they want to do," said Jon Ferraiolo, acting director of the alliance and a Web architect in the emerging technologies group at IBM. What results, he said, are collisions of JavaScript objects and the toolkits managing HTML markup, and an inability to integrate functions such as drag and drop events. With development of the hub, the alliance is dealing with its top priority, said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to questions. "There is a critical need for OpenAjax at this point in time, because each vendor's AJAX implementation is generally incompatible with the others," Bloomberg said. "Basically, even though each AJAX widget leverages XML and JavaScript, both of which are open standards, that doesn't mean that one widget from one toolkit will work with another widget from some other toolkit. The most important goal of OpenAjax is figuring out how to resolve this interoperability problem. Clearly, Ajax will be far more successful if any widget works with any other widget, toolkit, or platform." Support for the hub is expected in toolkits such as Dojo and script.aculo.us as well as in AJAX frameworks such as Tibco General Interface and offerings from Backbase, JackBe and Nexaweb. "No one has made any commitments [to use the hub yet] but generally, [the parties cited] are all active in the alliance," said Ferraiolo. The unveiling of the hub is part of an update on the alliance's activities that is being provided Wednesday. The group will announce a near-doubling of its membership since its formation in February. New members include The Ajaxian, American Greetings, Bling Software, Curl, edge IPK, eLink Business Innovations, ENOVIA, MatrixOne, Finetooth, The Front Side, Ikivo, ILOG, IN2, IT Mill, Javeline, JWAX, Merced Systems, Nexaweb, Nitobi, OpenLink Software, Seagull Software, Sitepen, Sun, Vertex Logic, Vircon, Webtide, and Zoho. Previously announced members of the alliance include: Adobe, Backbase, BEA Systems, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Fair Isaac, Google, IBM, ICEsoft, Innoopract, Intel, JackBe, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave Systems, Opera, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, Scalix, Software AG, Tibco, XML11, Zend, and Zimbra. While the alliance already has an impressive list of members, one name remains conspicuously absent: Microsoft. "Yes, we have extended an invitation and attempted to recruit Microsoft to join," Ferraiolo said. "We would love to have Microsoft participate in the alliance." "The purpose of the alliance is to make interoperability successful such that you can take AJAX technologies from one source and use it with another vendor's. Microsoft is one of [those] vendors and an important vendor in the AJAX community and it would be to everybody's advantage, particularly customers, if Microsoft's products would interoperate well with other people's products," said Ferraiolo. He added he was not making a statement that Microsoft products currently do not interoperate. Although Microsoft has promoted AJAX via its Atlas technologies, Microsoft currently does not have plans to join. "Microsoft has no firm plans to join the OpenAjax Alliance. However, Microsoft is very committed to working with the developer community and is engaged in dialogue with the OpenAjax Alliance organizers to learn more about the initiative," Microsoft said in a prepared statement. The alliance seeks to serve as an industry catalyst to boost AJAX-enabled Web 2.0 applications. Ferraiolo defines Web 2.0 as a new generation of the Web focused on collaboration. OpenAjax technologies are intended to produce lower development costs, faster delivery of applications, vendor choice, interoperability, and a richer Web experience. Greater collaboration capabilities that can be added to existing HTML sites or used for new applications is another goal. Also being unveiled on Wednesday is the organization's Web site and a white paper covering a description of AJAX, the AJAX value proposition and a technical section on AJAX architectures. These architectures include single and dual DOMs (Document Object Model), in which the single model involves processing everything in HTML browsers, while the dual approach involves using an XML parser that holds the description of the UI. The dual model offers a richer set of functionality but requires a larger download, typically, Ferraiolo said. AJAX in the open source world also is being included in the alliance's list of issues to cover. One of the goals for the alliance is the ability to have a zero-cost option, but it's not trying to lock out vendors from making money at all," said Ferraiolo. A second meeting of the alliance is planned for Oct. 5-6 in Santa Clara, Calif. The alliance on Oct. 5 plans to announce it has moved to a formal governance model that includes a steering committee. Goals and procedural issues also will be discussed. Security of AJAX also will be on the agenda, Ferraiolo said.
481653
I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
274000
Open source is changing the game by making software free.  About time.
546437
Related to an issue from a previous post, Greg Beaver has posted a solution to his Relax NG schema problem in PHP.   Shortly after my last blog post, I got a very helpful email from Rob Richards, who offered to help me with my trials and tribulations. He took a quick look at the schema for package.xml, and a sample package.xml and was able to find two small tweaks to make parsing actually work (gasp). This changes everything. I am abandoning the creation of a relax NG schema in favor of the battle-tested xsd. The error messages for xsd validation are far clearer than the rng ones.   The code included shows how much simpler the error messages are with the XSD validation option versus the RNG ones.
60236
Blog: It's true that open-source applications and infrastructure don't necessarily play well together today, as Microsoft suggests.  But it's also true that more than enough integration is in place for current market demand.
489771
In another carefully timed move to garner support for its document format still under consideration for an international standard, Microsoft today altered the terms under which use of its Office Open XML format by developers is permitted.
249309
An upstart website aims to hook you with commission-free trading.
566978
Data exchange format is just too slow, some say. But there's debate over the best way to make Extensible Markup Language fly.
767747
Jikes is a great compiler but they could really benefit from better project management.  This bug  has been open for greater than 3 years now with no resolution.  One of the developers sent me a *private* email (without commenting or closing the bug) this this could be fixed by avoiding the use of symlinks but wasn't sure. Of course this email was sent more than 2 years ago so I have no decent way of finding it.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that IBM won't let me comment on the bug without an account.  The only problem is that my account won't activate.  In a nutshell if you want to use incremental compile with jikes you need to specify relative paths not full paths.  For example if y ...
754440
From the Inside Open Source APress blog, there's a new post by Michael Stahnke documenting his search for a useful way to work with configuration files in a PHP application.   Recently I was working on developing an application that required a configuration file to setup. [...] XML is too hard to read for management-types. Plain text wasn't all that easy to handle from a code perspective. Then I remembered that when I played with Ruby on Rails it used something called YAML, and thought I'd give that go.   Searching around, he discovered the spyc library that aids in the YAML development and, as suggested by a commentor, the standards-compliant extension syck.
498291
The defeat of Microsoft&#39;s Open XML proposal before the International Standards Organization is more than a small hiccup in the software giant&#39;s plans to make its document file format a global standard, some analysts now say.
593797
Gone are the days when free software could blithely ignore what was happening in the world of proprietary code.  The two approaches are now inextricably intertwined as more and more users and companies choose to run both.  One paradoxical consequence of this is that as free software becomes more widely deployed, Microsoft's impact on it becomes greater.  Against this background, a recent shift in Microsoft's public statements about open source assumes a particular importance.
219853
The open-source project, still in early stages, is a cross-platform development tool that some are comparing to Java. Support is currently limited to Web applications and command-line tools.
341517
The debut of the full-release version of an open-source browser that can actually challenge Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Internet Explorer has been cause for celebration among open-source advocates.
422329
New software simplifies 'painful' process of moving public folders from Microsoft's Exchange to its SharePoint Server 2007.