The Portlet 2.0 specification (aka. JSR 286) is now final (see vote). The Proposed Final Draft is now available and should be very close to the Final Final Spec. Sun has support for it in the NetBeans Portal Pack (Blog Entry, Article, download), and will be in Portal Server 7.2, both based on the Open Source Portal-Container project. All these are supported on GlassFish.

And Liferay has also announced it will support Portlet 2.0 in Liferay 5.0 (Support Case)... and Liferay is also Supported on GlassFish :-)

Following on the heels of Part 1 and Part 2 of the Portal Open Source Article Series, Deepak and Marina have put out the next one - Open-Source Portal Initiative at Sun, Part 3: Portlet Container. The article describes the Portlet Container Project's goals, contribution guidelines, and future directions. Also summarized are the capabilities, design, and distribution of Portlet Container version 1.0. Further, this article explains how to install and deploy Portlet Container 1.0.

In general, these articles underscore how the collection of modules brewing under the Portal Project aim to foster the ubiquity of portal technology by providing components that are consumable, embeddable, and integratable in numerous environments, including portal servers and development tools.

The Portlet Challenge Contest announced previously is now coming to a close. Deadline for submissions is EOD PST March 27th, 2007. So if you have an interest in Portlets, or for that matter iPods (more than one is up for grabs), or better still both!, you may want to consider making a submission.

Wesley and Marina have done a complete refresh of the popular "Introducing Java Portlet Specifications.." article. It now not only covers the Java Portlet Specification 1.0 (JSR 168), but also takes a peek at the ongoing work on the upcoming Java Portlet Specification 2.0 (JSR 286). In addition, it walks through a sample Weather Portlet tying together leverage of the Portlet Repository Project, the Portlet Container Project, and the NetBeans Portal Pack Project.

So check it out -- Introducing Java Portlet Specifications: JSR 168 and JSR 286

If you tend to dabble with Portals/Portlets, and are not aware of the NetBeans Portal Pack Project, or not had a chance to take it for a spin yet, you may want to consider doing so.

The project got started a few months back and has made steady progress. It currently has plug-ins for developing JSR168 compliant Portlets, and some additional ones that allow direct deploy/undeploy to/from the Open Source Portlet Container implementation, as well as Sun's commercial grade Portal Server 7. The Portal Pack plug-ins recently got added to the NetBeans Auto-Update Center Beta as well.

Also related - if you need an easy-to-use, lightweight runtime to debug/test your portlets, you can use the Portal Pack plug-ins in conjunction with the Portlet Driver that is part of the Portlet Container Project. The Portlet Container and Driver are conveniently available via the Application Platform SDK Update 2 Release.

The Portlet Repository project has announced a Portlet Developer Challenge - an exciting opportunity for portlet developers to win an iPod. More details can be found at the contest home page. Also check out The Portal Post for current and up-to-date information on the Portal Project.

The WSRP Project (part of the Portal) is nearing their first Milestone late in December. That release plans to include support for these WSRP features: Producer, Consumer, Test Driver, Admin Portlet and MBean. The WSRP support builds on the Portlet Container and uses the GlassFish Server. Check the Portlet Getting Started document, the Install and User Guide for WSRP, and Rajesh's and Karthik's blogs.

A couple of recent additions to the Portal Project. First, Dean reports on the availability of the JAAS Portlet a new addition to the Porlet Repository (Home Page, overview article) that uses JAAS to authenticate the user against a plain text password file. Separatedly, Satya reports on the PortalPack project, which is building support for Portlets and Portals on top of NetBeans (see Project Page).

Little by little, the portal project is becoming a useful portal project; Jeff is not an impartial observer but he likes it Better than Pluto.

Part 2 of an article on opensource portal and portlet development is available now on Sun Developer Network. The article's focus is on the new opensource repository for portlets on java.net. As the popularity and resources of opensouce portlets grows, users of portals will gain more and more benefit at a higher and higher ROI of their portal projects. What a great idea for opensource participation. Contributing and sharing portlets which provide simple deploy-and-play functions for portal's and portal pages.

Atul and Marina just published the first part of an Overview of the Portal Project at Java.Net. The portal project is building a complete enterprise-quality portal. It is doing so in steps, releasing components as they are rearchitected for the needs of an Open Source world where modules are intended to be reused and recombined. The existing components in the Portal project include: a Portlet Container, a WSRP Producer and Consumer, a JSF Portlet Bridge, and a Portlet Repository (and also see the PRP Protocol).

Coopetition is alive and well in Open Source. Take for instance JBoss. JBoss is clearly Sun's competidor in the AppServer area but they use JAXB and JSF. Similar case with Portal: JBoss, Sun and Portlet Swap are working in the PRP Project to enlarge the market of portable portlets. See the PRP home page, the Invitation, and JBoss' blog

OpenSource projects have a high degree of interconnectivity and plugability, and, bit by bit we are acheiving that across our different Middleware projects. The Portal project already includes a Portlet Container and Karthikk explains how to Deploy the Portal Container on GlassFish and then how to Deploy Portlets on that portal. Another recent combination is Phobos and the Web Server, while OpenSSO and GlassFish is almost working and I'll report when it gets fixed.

More OpenSource code. Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) defines the Web Services required so that a local portal can show the content of a Portlet that lives remotedly. This is a useful and relatively uncomplicated integration mechanism, and relies on two pieces, a consumer and a provider - check Ajit's overview of the spec (part I, part II). When the Portal project was launched, it included the Producer Code; now the Consumer Code is also available at the WSRP project. The rest of the portal will follow bit by bit.

BTW, check these related blogs on WSRP: Proxy Settings for WSRP and WSRP and User Identity Propagation.

A new article is available on Sun Developer Network detailing how to switch between Java DB and other database implementations. The article is part of the ongoing series on portal community and collaboration features. The article is available here.

A new article was added to Sun Developer Network on AJAX portlet best practices. The article refers to an updated version of the sample, AJAX Portlet Invoice Viewer, and is available here.