[+PLUS][I+MM] Fwd: FSM newsletter: tools_and_open_standards

[Hiran Venugopalan]

 IBM: Open source and open standards technical briefingA write up of IBM's
free software development: tools and open standards technical briefing held
at Bedfont Lakes, London, UK on 9th March 2006

By Edward Macnaghten

On the 9th of March, IBM DeveloperWorks held a technical meeting at their
Bedfont Lakes office in London. I was sent an invitation and—due to the fact
it sounded interesting, was free, and they were supplying lunch—I decided to
tag along.
The day starts

After a 5:00 AM start, and following several hectic train journeys, I
arrived at Bedfont Lakes in time to register for the briefing and got a pass
badge for my troubles. I was then ushered down the hallway where some coffee
and danishes were awaiting us. Once I had suitably refueled, I marched into
a lecture room, where other attendees were already seated, and waited in
eager anticipation for the events to come.
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The briefing was started by Kate Fairbrother from IBM Software Marketing.
She gave as a welcome, some health and safety information for the day, and
an apology for the main speakers having not arrived yet. However, Kevin Czap
and Randy Powell soon arrived, who both currently reside in Texas, USA. They
had also just arrived in the UK from Milan, Italy, the previous day. Because
of that, they were unfamiliar with the London transport system; and so were
a little late and disheveled.

So, having been force fed some coffee, and seeing that Kate had made sure we
were welcome, healthy and safe, they dived into action.
  [image: Kevin and Randy, the heroes of the day] <http://ibmrankev.jpg> Kevin
and Randy, the heroes of the day

The audience seemed to be largely made up of, what I would call, "Outside
IBMers". That is, people who work with IBM technologies, but are not from
IBM itself. There were only a few (if any) actual IBM employees present;
however, there were a number of IBM VARs, and other third party
representatives. The presentation was tuned to introduce concepts of open
standards and Open Source to the guests and to inform everyone of IBM's
stance on the issue.

The presentations themselves can be retrieved from the briefing's web
site<http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/offers/techbriefings/details/osds.html>.
However, I will summarize them here too.
Open standards and Open Source

The first presentation delivered by the above-mentioned dynamic duo was
entitled "Open Standards, Open Source and IBM". They began by defining what
is meant by "open standards", and emphasising their importance using railway
track gauges, amongst other things, as an example. They then went on to
describe Open Source as defined by the OSI <http://www.opensource.org/> and
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There was one quote that caught my eye during that presentation, which was:
"Standards contribute more to economic growth than patents and licenses".
This is originally a quote from an article entitled "Economic benefits of
standardization", from the Technical University Dresden (TUD) and the
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovations. I find it quite something
that IBM, who are one of the largest patent holders in the world, are also
advocating this. So much so that I feel it warrants its own paragraph and
highlight...

The IBM briefing advocated that standards contribute more to economic growth
than patents and licenses
Apache Derby and Geronimo with IBM Cloudscape and WAS

After some questions, and without further ado, the next presentation was
given. This was entitled "Open Databases: Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape",
and dealt with that subject. Apache Derby <http://db.apache.org/derby/> is
an ACID <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID>-compliant SQL
database<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_database>written entirely in
Java and maintained by
Apache <http://www.apache.org/>. It is primarily an embedded database, which
means the data is accessed directly by the client without going through a
server process. However, a network layer is supplied and it can also run in
the more familiar client-server model in the same way as other SQL
databases. Cloudscape <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloudscape/> is
IBM's snapshot of Apache Derby, which IBM supply in a commercial context and
provide appropriate support for. Both Apache Derby and Cloudscape are free
software (as in speech as well as cost).

Next, it was break time. We gathered outside the room where we could enjoy
another cup of coffee and any of the buns remaining from earlier that
morning. Renewed and refreshed, we took our places for the experiences to
come.
  [image: The all important session of technical briefings]
<http://ibmcoffee.jpg> The all important session of technical briefings

The next offering was a presentation with the mammoth title of "Open
Application Servers: Apache Geronimo and WebSphere Application Server
Community Edition". Apache Geronimo <http://geronimo.apache.org/> is
an Application
Server <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_server> also written in
Java. The relationship between it and IBM's WebSphere Application Server
(WAS) Community Edition is similar to that between Apache Derby and IBM
Cloudscape. There are, however, other editions of WAS for a more
enterprise-oriented solution that are not free. But, the community edition
permits development and small implementations with no upfront license costs.
Needless to say, IBM will sell you support on WAS community edition if so
required.

Our high-flying speakers took great pains to emphasise the use of open
standards in both the database (Derby/Cloudscape) and application server
(Geronimo/WebSphere) products. They also took the trouble to show this as an
example of how IBM were not only embracing open standards and open source,
but building a business out of it too. They also explained that, as they
have a vested interest in seeing the Apache products being as high quality
as possible, they invest heavily in them—they employ developers to
contribute top grade code to these projects.
Application development with Open Source and beyond

There then followed a session entitled "Application Development with Open
Source Tools". This began with what was, in essence, a plug for
Eclipse<http://www.eclipse.org/>,
and I have to say I was impressed. Eclipse is a Java Integrated Development
Environment<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment>.
It was originally created by IBM, who released it as free/open source
software and have also passed development over to the free software
community, in the form of the Eclipse Foundation. Its many features are far
too numerous to mention here, but, after being shown it, I am in the process
of migrating my development environment over to it. I was that impressed.

I was so impressed with Eclipse that I am migrating my development
environment over to it

The last chapter of the morning was entitled "Beyond Open Source and Open
Standards: Next Steps". This showed that, if open standards are adhered to,
free software can be used to develop and implement small solutions, then the
enterprise editions can be used in the deployment of the same application in
larger and more demanding scenarios. They pointed out that an interface to
the small embedded Cloudscape database could be used to access data stored
on a large DB2 enterprise database server. We were also shown similar
scalable factors concerning this issue that showed how an application can
grow as the implementation does with minimal re-work.

An opportunity was taken during the day to inform us of the upcoming DB2
Express Community Edition. This is a free (in cost only, no source code) DB2
database, and, while it doesn't have the enterprise features included, it
has no limitations in regard to number of connections, nor in the size of
tables or databases.

The briefing now being officially over we were released to be greeted by a
complimentary lunch as we left the room. This consisted of some savory
snacks and sandwiches presented to us in a buffet. I have to say I found it
delicious and it managed to sustain me for the afternoon. IBM then permitted
the two presenters, Randy and Kevin, to enjoy the rest of the day and
evening in London, before putting them back on a plane home to Texas. Such
is the life of the jet-set.
Conclusions and an observations

I knew beforehand that IBM was committed to open standards and free software
so the main theme of the briefing came to me as no surprise, though
encouraging none the less. It was, however, as far as I'm aware, the first
time this particular briefing had been given, and I have to say it was a
little rough around the edges. But, despite that, it was well worth the
effort of attending (the briefing and lunch were free), and it was pleasant
to hear IBM reaffirm their community driven strategy.

The fact that Randy and Kevin used ODF and OpenOffice.org to present the
briefing demonstrates their willingness to practice what they preach

I would like to finish this on an observation I made. Randy and Kevin made a
point that the presentations they were giving were kept on their computers
in OpenDocument<http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office>format,
a true and recognised open standard. However, the operating system
their laptops ran were MS-Windows, though they did demonstrate some of the
applications in a Linux session in VMWare. When I pointed this out they did
say they do plan to look at GNU/Linux closer but, amongst other things,
their reliance on Lotus Notes causes problems here apparently.

Also, when I came to write this article and downloaded the presentations for
reference I discovered that the PDFs of these had a title like "Microsoft
PowerPoint - OSDS V1.0 slides 2of6.ppt". Ho-hum!. Mind you, it is possible
that the Web System Administrator converted to MS-PowerPoint and used it to
manipulate the presentation prior to publishing. The fact that Randy and
Kevin used ODF and OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> to present the
briefing demonstrates their willingness to practice what they preach.
License

(C) 2006 Edward Macnaghten

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under
the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the
license is available at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
About the author

Edward Macnaghten has been a professional programmer, analyst and consultant
for in excess of 20 years. His experiences include manufacturing
commercially based software for a number of industries in a variety of
different technical environments in Europe, Asia and the USA. He is
currently running an IT consultancy specialising in free software solutions
based in Cambridge UK. He can be reached through the web
site<http://eddy.edlsystems.com>he maintains.

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--
| Hiran Venugopalan | http://hiraneffects.blogspot.com |
| Palakkad Libre software Users Society | Adding freedom to common minds |
[Formerly  Palakkad GNU/LinuxUsers Society]
| Hiranyam | Ayodhya Nagar | Pallipuram Post | Palakkad | Kerala | PIN
678006 |
| 09846951870 | hiran.v at gmail.com |
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