J2EE and Open Source Innovation: The Relationship between Open Source and Standards

By:

The Java Enterprise Edition standard has become widely used throughout the software industry. Since Sun Microsystems released version 1.0 of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) in late 1999 the open source community has played a key role in the specification's development.

Practical difficulties with developing J2EE applications, in particular those with Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), have lead to various key open source initiatives within the Java community. These have included the Hibernate object relational mapping framework and the Spring application framework, which have often been used in conjunction as a lightweight alternative to J2EE architectures based on EJB 2.

Other notable responses to J2EE, such as Ruby on Rails (Rails), have fallen within the realm of web application frameworks based on scripting languages. Rails, with its philosophy of convention over configuration, has presented a further challenge to the Java EE community to enable easier development of web applications.

Recently released by JBoss, Seam 1.0 is an example of an open source application framework that makes use of JavaServer Faces, a Sun standard that with a history of several years standing.

These examples will serve to demonstrate the key role that open source innovation has played in the continuing evolution of the Java Enterprise Edition standard.

Stream: Java

Paper: J2EE and Open Source Innovation

Born in Hobart, Keith has been fascinated by computer programming since he was introduced to Pascal by Professor Jan Hext in a Computer Science lecture at Sydney University in 1980. After graduating with a BSc, Keith spent many years developing software on IBM mainframes, typically using technologies such as PL/I, IMS, CICS and JCL. This experience left him searching for a more elegant approach. Exploration of Object Orientation and Smalltalk followed before he was enticed by the Java juggernaut. A Senior Consultant with Cirrus Technologies Pty Ltd in Sydney since 2000, Keith has continued to search for more elegant software development approaches and during the last two years has taken an increasing interest in Ruby on Rails whilst keeping a keen eye on Java EE developments.