When we started GlassFish we used to hear "It's just a Reference Implementation!" so often that I wrote a note on that in June 2006. I think we have made progress since then but I just read Solomon's note on Evaluting JAX-RS Implementations and it has the same misconception, so, here is a reminder...

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away", Sun had a group (the "church") doing proof-of-concept References Implementations and Specifications, and another (the "state") doing the commercial products based on those specifications. But those days are long gone and we now have a single team building a single (Open Source) implementation. A Reference Implementation is just an attribute (defined by the JCP), and so is Enteprise Quality (defined by the market), so it is quite possible for an implementation to be both. Like a movie that is in the Top 20 by Revenue and in the Top 20 by AFI... like Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

So, back to Solomon's questions ([1], [2]) - we are building Jersey to be both the Reference Implementation of JAX-RS and the component we will use in GF and several other artifacts. So, go use Jersey, and May the force be with you!

Bauer Systems is the most recent entry on our "Stories" blog. This well established German online and print media company has invested significantly in the GlassFish application server, with "transparent roadmap" as one of its deciding factor. They use many different technologies in the product (EJBs, Web Services, JMS, ...) and, as Norbert Seekircher Lead Software Architect at Bauer Systems, puts it - "we are using GlassFish as the container for all our current Java EE development".

What's interesting about this customer is that it's illustrating what I think is a tendency with customers moving from a tactical use to a strategic use of GlassFish. It's no longer chosen for a specific product but more as a founding technology for numerous enterprise applications.

We will soon expand this "Stories" blog to other open source software technologies from Sun. If you are using OpenMQ, OpenESB, OpenPortal, or any other such products in production, we'd love it if you could share your experience with the rest of the community. Please ping us at "stories @ sun.com".

Geertjan and Patrick Keegan have published a new DZone Refcard for NetBeans 6.1. The card focuses on the Java IDE side. Check out Geertjan's Note or go directly to the RefCard. The card is similar to the GlassFish's RefCard we mentioned a few days ago.

DZone now has a Reference Card for the GlassFish Server. The author is Masoud, an active (non-Sun) participant in the GlassFish community. This is the first RefCard from DZone in the area of AppServers - another indicator of the increased adoption of GlassFish. To get the RefCard you will need to register at DZone, provide your information and then navigate to the RefCard link. The card itself is 7 pages long; I did a quick skim and it seems to cover the basics with a nice layout. Thanks to Masoud for the tip.

Another reference has hit the "GlassFish Stories" blog. TraveMuse is a new company soon at full speed promising you a better online travel planning experience (I'm sure you'll agree there's room for improvement ;).

The amount of GlassFish technologies and open source frameworks is comprehensive and includes EJB, JSF, JPA, JMS (OpenMQ), jMaki, but also Alfresco for content management. MySQL is the backend database used to power TravelMuse. The entire architecture is running on Sun Blades.

As always, this GlassFish in production story has a full questionnaire with details on the application and the technologies behind it all. Make sure you check back in June for the full launch of TravelMuse! Wishing them a bright Redshift future!

Carrefour is the #1 European retail company (#2 worldwide) and the 9th largest employer worldwide. Its Belgium subsidiary is now using GlassFish in production. This is a fairly tactical use of GlassFish to solve an integration problem between their SAP backend and their account synchronization tool. Interestingly enough this runs on a set of IBM blades (read all the questionnaire here).

A more strategic approach for GlassFish is scheduled by Carrefour Belgium with the use of the forthcoming Java CAPS Release 6 product. This is Sun's SOA suite building on the SeeBeyond and OpenESB technologies to deliver a Java EE 5-based (GlassFish) complete solution for composite applications.

Make sure you read the details on this GlassFish story. Clearly, European retailers are making good use of GlassFish.

A recent thread at TSS discussed that BEA had certified WLS 10 Technology Preview against the Java EE 5 CTS. That's great news for platform adoption but I'll admit I was unhappy when I read a comment in that same thread that said:

GlassFish doesn't count since the public opinion is to avoid using Sun software except for the JDK...

I find the comment specially grating as BEA is Using GlassFish's Java EE 5 WS Stack in WLS 10. And Sun is using it in Sun's JDK6! And there are more adopters; a non-exhaustive list for JAX-WS includes BEA, Tmax Soft's JEUS 6, Sun's JDK, and more (adoption). The list for JAXB is longer, also including JBoss, Geronimo, Celtix, XFire... (adoption)

I believe GlassFish's Web Services layer is the best in the market; but obviously we need to (continue to?) improve our communication story :-(

Oh well; we will get there eventually - all the annecdotal indicators I see point to strong adoption.

Too many people still believe that a JCP Reference Implementation is always just a "Proof of Concept". Although some are, there are many that are fully production-quality, and, in particular, the Reference Implementation for Java EE has been production quality at least since SJS AS 8.x, so please help us spread the word.

I wrote a blog at Java.Net expanding on the relationship between Reference Implementations and Production Implementations. You may also want to check out our earlier 20 Things You Should Know about Project GlassFish.