Jim Parkinson's Weblog: "That which does not Kill you Makes you Stronger"

Project Kenai is the onramp for Sun's developer "cloud" efforts.  Having gone live back in September of 2008, it now exceeds over 7,000 members and surpassed 500 publicly hosted open source projects.

 Come to Java One and see Kenai, Netbeans, library.network.com, Sun's Storage Cloud, Zembly, Openoffice, and Project Speedway re-define the developers cloud experience. ( we also have a few surprises as well)

Project Kenai currently offer an integrated suite of productivity services for developers to host their open source code or connect with peers of like mind, and will be enable additional cloud and collaboration services very soon.  Today, every project started at Kenai.com gets the following:

    * Evolving integration with NetBeans
    * (5) Source Code repositories (Subversion, Mercurial, and Git in any combination of 5)
    * (2) Issue Tracking systems (Jira or Bugzilla)
    * (1) Wiki
    * (5) Forums
    * (5) Mailing Lists
    * (1) Download facility for documents

Anyone can join by going to http://kenai.com.  And if parties are ready to start hosting a project, they simply need to send an invitation request with a description of their project to: kenai-admin@sun.com.

Here's some useful resources to learn more or stay connected:

    * Kenai on OSUM for Students: http://osum.sun.com/group/projectkenai
    * Blog: http://blogs.sun.com/projectkenai
    * Twitter: http://twitter.com/projectkenai
    * Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38870547853&ref=ts
    * Nuts & Bolts of Kenai.com http://kenai.com/projects/help/pages/KenaiOverview
    * NetBeans Connectivity: http://wiki.netbeans.org/NewAndNoteworthyMilestone3NB67#section-NewAndNoteworthyMilestone3NB67-ConnectedDeveloperIntegrationWithKenai.com
    * Screencasts:
          o "Welcome to Project Kenai:" https://slx.sun.com/1179272514
          o "Edit your Project Kenai Profile:" https://slx.sun.com/1179272664
          o "Manage your Kenai Project:" https://slx.sun.com/1179273752

 Sun is announcing an alignment of its Software organization into new business groups – Application Platform Software, Systems Platforms, and Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms - with a focus on boosting open source momentum and growing new sectors of the market who view technology as a competitive tool.

Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms: Working across all of Sun, Senior Vice President, Dave Douglas, will lead the Company's efforts to capitalize on two trends: the increasing shift of customer and developer focus to web-based cloud services and Sun's already established leadership position in the space through Network.com, the NetBeans developer platform, and OpenOffice.org. The unit will build upon Sun's existing online developer community – one of the world's largest – to firmly establish the company as a leader in cloud computing and grow this area into a significant driver of future revenues.

Whatever else people may have read or heard, they should be assured: We are not about to walk away from OpenOffice.org. With more than a hundred million users, its value is clear. And that value also lies in its active community. We recognize that open source is central not just to Sun's future growth but to the world's. And OOo is absolutely key there.Michael and I will continue to support the OO.org community as part of our roles at Sun.

NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta, the latest release of Sun's award-winning open-source IDE that enables developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications with Java, C/C++ , JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy, and PHP.

NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta introduces several new features, including a robust IDE for PHP, JavaScript debugging for Firefox and IE, and support for Groovy and Grails. This release also includes a number of enhancements for Java, JavaScript, Ruby and Rails, and C/C++ development. Java feature highlights include: built-in support for Hibernate, Spring Framework, Eclipse project import,  RESTful Web Services and compile on save. Developers will also be able to experiment with GlassFish v3 Prelude, that ships along with this beta release.

Give it a try!!

On July 22nd we announced the availability of Java Communications Suite 6., which includes the new Convergence web client,
push e-mail support and a host of other features. These new capabilities and enhancements make Communications Suite 6 an even stronger
alternative to Microsoft Exchange, while enabling leading Telco and cable companies to provide their subscribers with seamless new services
leading to increase customer growth and delight.

The Sun Java Communications Suite delivers industry leading email, calendaring and real time collaboration functionality for service provider
and large organizations worldwide. It provides an extensible, standards-based development platform, offering improved performance, reliability
and scalability at a lower TCO.

Communications Suite Components Services                                                    

Message access and message management
Calendar Service and group scheduling
Instant Messaging, Presence and Chat
Centralized Address Book

Access

Sun Convergence – a complete webclient
Outlook Connectivity
Mobile Sync

Administration and Configuration

Delegated Administration
New Communications Suite Installer

What's New

This Communications Suite release includes many new features, including:

• Sun Convergence communications client

• New subscription-based pricing model for point products

• New Messaging Server features include:

  • Very large mailbox support

  • Message store database rolling backup

  • Additional LEMONADE support for mobile messaging

• New Instant Messaging Server features include:

  • Javascript API

  • Peer-to-peer voice chat

  • IMPS protocol support

• New Outlook Connector features include:

  • Support for Vista

  • Support for Outlook 2007

  • Support for large PST files

• An entirely new Communications Suite installer

  Sun Convergence:                                
  

  Sun Convergence is an elegant and powerful web client for the Java Communications Suite. It provides a unique and highly useful web communication and collaboration experience through a rich mash up of email, calendaring, contacts,presence, instant messaging and other web services.

  
  

Key Benefits

• Convergence, built on top of the highly scalable, secure and standards based services within the Java Communications Suite, is designed to scale from thousands to millions of users.

• Convergence's rich integration of email, calendaring, contacts and instant messaging helps users to save time and better organize information, schedule events and tasks and consequently be more productive

• With drag and drop, right click context menus and keyboard shortcuts Convergence provides a desktop-like experience with the power of anytime, anywhere access of the web

• Convergence can be easily customized and integrated with other web services to create a highly differentiated and personalized user experience
  
  
  
  Please come give it a test drive at : Test Drive Convergence

  Userid : field1 / Password: cosmo
  Or to learn more :  www.sun.com/comms

Download it from here.  [link to http://www.sun.com/so9beta_download]

If it's a comprehensive office suite you're looking for, try the latest version of StarOffice 9 Beta at no-charge. It's got tons of new features, now works on your Mac, and lets you extend functionality with cool add-ons called extensions.  There's so much useful stuff in this release that it's tough to boil it down to the key ones, but here is a sneak peek at the new features by main application:

   * Writer - improved and much easier note taking, zoom slider for
     easy zooming in and out, easy editing of multiple documents
   * Impress - Presenter view, native tables (so you don't have to copy
     and paste tables from as spreadsheet), presentation file size
     minimizer
   * Calc - new Solver tool, new charting functionality including
     better 3-D, 1024 rows, spreadsheet sharing for collaboration or
     concurrent editing
   * Base - report builder tool
   * PIM - And of course the calendar extension to Mozilla which
     provides effective mail/calendar or Personal Information Manager
     (PIM) functionality

And general features include Mac support, improved Microsoft Office compatibility, fresh set of icons, a re-designed Start Menu, an extension manager and an online update feature which alerts you when updates are available and if you allow, install the updates.

We have created a thriving extension framework for StarOffice/StarSuite and OpenOffice.org and have seven powerful, free extensions for StarOffice 9 Beta such as the PDF Importer, Weblog Publisher (blogger) and a MediaWiki publisher.  See sun.com/staroffice/extensions for download instructions.  In addition, a full list of all extensions for OpenOffice.org can be found at the extensions repository [repository should link to http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/]

StarOffice has always been known for its strong interoperability and StarOffice 9 is no different.  It support Microsoft Office including import of Microsoft Office 2007 OOXML , PDF/A, ODF 2.0, HTML, Flash and many graphic formats.  In addition to the Mac, StarOffice 9 runs on Solaris, Windows and Linux.   All this means that you can share files with just about anyone using any operating system, office suite or hardware.

Give it a try -- click here [sun.com/so9beta_download] to download the StarOffice 9 Beta or go to www.sun.com/software/staroffice/get_beta.jsp for more information on new features, support and feedback mechanisms and system requirements.  To download StarSuite 9 Beta, go to sun.com/ss9beta_download, note that StarSuite is the Asian language version of StarOffice.  There's a lot of neat stuff to test out and we'd love to hear your feedback.

 

Wow !!  if you want to see something really cool, go look at the new documentation for Communications Suite 6. 

http://wikis.sun.com/display/CommSuite/Sun+Java+Communications+Suite+Information

 

I am not normally a big fan of Wikis, but the neat part of this is our docs team, engineers and our customers

have all contributed to build this! No more paper docs, no more CD/DVDs for docs!! I guess this is a "green"

software product. No trees killed to produce documentation for Comms Suite 6!!

 

Also Joe Sciallo's blog will give you more detail. Joe has done a great job leading this effort!!

 

Very Cool, go take a look!
 

 Everyone hopefully has been noticing the great strides that the OpenOffice.org community has made of late and the fantastic set of features that are now available for everyone in the latest release 2.3. If you haven't tried it yet, download a copy and give it a try. I guarantee you will be just as impressed as I have been.  http://www.openoffice.org/)                 

The Sun team is  extremely excited with the progress made to date.We are aggressively working  to move in the right direction, to ensure that the community continues to thrive. What many of you might not be aware of  is that we (Sun) have increased our focus and dedication around OpenOffice.org.  Nine months ago Rich Green asked me to take over the responsibility for Sun's commitment and support to OpenOffice.org.  We are looking at the history of OpenOffice.org, issues that might effect the community and how best to evolve, for everyone's benefit.  Based on my observations and discussions with the community members, three areas of  focus are;

1. Community governance
2. Contribution agreement
3. New tools and more open selection of tools

In the area of Governance, we have asked a number of folks to join a new Community Advisory Group. These are  companies interested in investing more resources in OO.org  and from the community at large.

To better describe the role the text from the invitation is below.

There have been significant and ground-breaking announcements around OpenOffice.org and there is great momentum around the project and community. We should all feel very proud of being part of such an amazing Open Source project. We can't just stop here we need to continue to evolve and ensure we are doing the right things for the community and the product's long-term future. I can ensure you that this common goal is something that I am committed to. With this goal in mind I would personally like to take this opportunity to invite you, and the company you represent, to join the OpenOffice.org Advisory Board.

The goal of the Advisory Board is to ensure we continue to move OpenOffice.org in such a direction that guarantees its long-term success and a successful future. The Board will provide strategic representation of the project's key stakeholders and community representatives. It will mediate between the desires and interests of the stakeholder companies and the community, and balance the inputs against with the strategic goal.

There are no preconceived notions on the actual structure and boundaries of the Board and suggest we cover that collectively at our first meeting. The Board will not manage the project's daily affairs, nor will it replace the OpenOffice.org's existing governing body, and the Community Council. The council will continue to do what it has done so well: resolve community issues and conflicts, set community goals, manage community funds, and most important, give a voice to the hundreds of thousands who make up the OpenOffice.org community.

I will report out after the first meeting, which is Nov. 1, 2007.

In order to address some of the concerns I have heard from the community, we are planning for  OO.org to use the new Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp. I have carefully reviewed this document and have had council from a variety of our community members. This SCA goes a long way in addressing a variety of concerns with the current agreement. The most community friendly aspect of moving to the SCA is the inclusion of language stating that any contribution licensed out by Sun will also be licensed under an OSI or FSF approved license.  Please take a look at it and give comments.  We plan to use this agreement as soon as possible. This is a positive step forward for the community and more evidence that we are listening.  We continue to listen to feedback regarding the license under which OO.org is available.

In the tools area, I have asked Michael Bemmer and the Engineering Steering committee to come back with  recommendations on the tools the community agrees are best.  Then we will start the process to implement as soon as possible. We are counting on the community to help in that effort.  We are committed to a bug,build and source code management environment that speeds contribution and adoption by all.

Having read many blogs in the last few days, I need to clear up a few things:
 
-- StarOffice and OpenOffice are almost identical binaries
-- The big difference is that Sun can indemnify any user of StarOffice
-- StarOffice comes with enterprise level support and hence we charge for that. OpenOffice is free
-- The copyright assignment is not new
-- Sun contributes all of its development to OO.o under LGPL


Clearly we have work ahead, please be assured that Sun is steadfastly behind a strong, transparent and fair community process. We value the users and developers in the community! We welcome your input and your contribution. We invite developers, users and corporations to join the OpenOffice community effort !

 

 

I came across the announcement a while ago that Singapore Airlines was going to embed StarOffice in their seat back entertainment systems on many of their refurbished 777-300ER planes, but I didn't know when/where we would start seeing this .
Well...

Chuk-Munn Lee (one of our evangelists) was flying back to Singapore from JavaOne and was on one of the planes. He snapped a couple of images to show StarOffice available on the entertainment system. Below is one of the images - he launched Star Impress to see if he could work on some of his slides (you can plug in your own USB key to edit/save files) - he said the system worked well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big news from JavaOne on Friday - we are announcing the availability of the Sun Grid Module for the Netbeans IDE!

This is a great new plugin that lets developers do a number of cool things:



- Use the new Sun Grid Application project type to develop a java application directly in Netbeans.  This is a Java application project configured for one click packaging, deployment,  and execution on the Sun Grid Compute Utility.

- For all project types (Java and otherwise ), you can manage resources, jobs, and "runs" on Sun Grid - all without leaving Netbeans!

The new plugin also includes wizards to greatly simplify many of the typical uses of Sun Grid:


- "Create Sun Grid Resource" wizard:
Lets you select multiple files on your desktop, create a ZIP file and then upload  as a resource to Sun Grid, all in a single step.


- "Download Sun Grid Output" wizard:  Download your job output, unpack it, view it  - or -  open it using an application of your choosing.



With this  plugin, you never have to leave the Netbeans environment to develop, deploy, and view the results of your jobs on Sun Grid.  Because it simplifies the standard processes,  you can focus on the more complex aspects of developing applications for grids - such as parallelizing applications to take maximum advantage of Sun Grid.

Find out more -
- Register and use Sun Grid @ http://www.network.com

- Get Netbeans @ http://www.netbeans.org

- Get the Sun Grid Plugin from the Netbeans Beta Update Center which comes preconfigured as part of the standard Netbeans IDE installation .

- Get Sun grid plugin details @ http://sungridplugin.dev.java.net.

- Join the Sun Grid community @ http://developers.sun.com/sungrid

 And, in hockey news, the Western Conference Finals start on Friday with the Anaheim Ducks vs the Detroit Red Wings  - Go Wings!

 

                                                                                                             

There are exciting activities happening this week in Network.com: we are releasing new features to enhance the availability and flexibility of Sun Grid.

A bit of background - the Sun Grid Compute Utility, at the heart of Network.com, is a true utility computing model that's all about simplicity and flexibility. You come and you go as you please. You use what you need, and you only pay for what you use. Sun Grid essentially gives "infrastructure on demand" to users who can't or won't make large investments in IT infrastructure. You don't sign long term contracts and you only use the grid when you need it. With Sun Grid, IT becomes an operational expense, not a capital expense. Available for just $1/CPU-hour

This March, we launched the Network.com Application Catalog. The Application Catalog gives developers the ability to create, publish and share applications online through Network.com.  With this catalog, you can get instant access to ISV and open source applications on a pay-per-use basis. The catalog also includes the ability to use digital tokens to manage and protect shared applications. Create, Publish &  Share!

What's new -

Internet (Bi Directional) Data Access  enables applications running on the Sun Grid computing environment to access external data and services over the Internet. This opens the possibility for Network.com to offer mashups of data and services from multiple sources.  It eliminates the need to download large data files to work with your apps and makes it much easier to take advantage of the high performance computing environment offered by Network.com

Job Submission API, in limited beta release and delivered to users as a Java Client Side API.  This allows developers to programmatically interface with Sun Grid for most common operations.  We also offer interfaces that use the API to provide additional access mechanisms, such as a command line interface. The API will be distributed as a Java Jar file with the associated documentation and sample applications.

Network.com goes international, providing expanded, international access to the Sun Grid Compute Utility and bringing the flexibility, scalability, economy and convenience of Network.com to 24 countries in Europe, Asia, Asia-Pacific, the U.K. and North America.  Developers, ISVs and end-users from these countries will  have access to the Sun Grid on-demand, as well as to the open source and ISV applications published in the Network.com application catalog.

Listen to the podcast that I did with Hal Stern a few weeks ago to hear more   .

If you would like to know how to develop for the grid, Sun's Developer Network (SDN) offers a ton of resources to help you get started: Sun Grid Compute Utility Developer Resources 
                                                                                                     

I am very pleased to announce that Sun has joined the OpenOffice Mac Porting Project!   This is great news for Mac users who seek open source alternatives to MS Office.

You can read all about it at http://blog.sun.com/gullfoss/ :  the blog of OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun.

OpenOffice.org is a very attractive alternative for many people because it allows users to use the same applications and the same open standard file format across all key platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD.

Apple has a significant market share in the desktop space and more and more people out there are using Apple notebooks. Since Sun's software strategy is a multi-platform strategy, it was a natural decision to join the Mac porting efforts in order to accelerate the development. Eric Bachard, who is leading the Mac porting effort on OpenOffice.org, described Sun's involvement as a “win” for the Mac porting project. The OpenOffice Mac Port is very popular: on average the Mac porting web pages get about 15-20K page hits per week. Per Eric, this number can go up to 30,000 or 50,000 clicks per day when he puts interesting Aqua screenshots on his blog.

We should be able to show the first working version of Aqua at the OpenOffice.org Conference in Barcelona in September. However, it probably will take a few extra months before it will be on par with the other platforms. I strongly encourage users to join the community and help test developer builds. There can also never be enough developers. If you can write code or know how to design user interfaces, join the effort. The more people the faster the job will get done. Everybody who has a Mac can help, because it's always important to have people who can do QA and testing. For the core development, C++, OpenOffice.org API and Mac API skills would be perfect, but probably the eagerness to help is is the most important thing!

What about StarOffice, NeoOffice and Sun's support strategies? StarOffice is Sun's professional distribution of Openoffice.org, so it's quite possible that a Mac version of Staroffice will be released. Stay tuned. With regard to NeoOffice, Sun has chose to support projects under the umbrella of OpenOffice.org, i.e. projects that use the same hosting and communication infrastructure as well as the same open source license. From our point it's important to have one coherent code base maintained by one single community. With regards to support, it's also quite likely that Sun will officially offer support and services for the Mac version of OpenOffice in addition to our other supported platforms.
 
With regard to features, native support for the Open XML format in OpenOffice for Mac is an ongoing development effort led by Sun engineers. It will be available in future OpenOffice.org releases on all supported platforms, including Mac OS X. Integration with Spotlight is already listed on the current roadmap.

Go here for more details: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/timeline.html. Have a look and get involved.