On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 00:30, Roy T. Fielding <field...@gbiv.com> wrote:
> On Jun 7, 2010, at 1:17 PM, Richard S. Hall wrote: > > > On 6/7/10 15:52, Roy T. Fielding wrote: > >> Hi Richard, > >> > >> This isn't too important, but I have to admit that > >> > >> > >>> charged with the creation and maintenance of > >>> open-source software related to an OSGI based runtime for > >>> creating enterprise servers > >>> > >> doesn't actually say anything meaningful to me because > >> it has too many happy market terms. > >> > >> Would it be fair to summarize Karaf as > >> > >> "an OSGI-based runtime container that allows various components > >> and applications to be dynamically deployed within a Java servlet > >> environment" > >> > > > > I don't think there was an attempt to use "happy market terms", but we > can certainly try to improve the description. > > > > Your characterization seems somewhat narrowly focused on servlets, but > Karaf really is a generic, OSGi-based runtime for creating enterprise > servers, which may or may not use servlets. It simply tries to provide a > common set of generic features needed by enterprise services, such as hot > deployment, configuration management, logging, extensible and remotely > accessible shell, etc. You could build any sort of server out of these > features. > > Just to be clear, I don't know if Karaf has any association with > servlets -- it was just a suggestion based on the website content > and the fact that it seems to be Java only. > Out of curiosity, what made you think about servlets? The main page: http://felix.apache.org/site/apache-felix-karaf.html does not talk about servlets at all. > > Enterprise (at least the way you are using it) is a happy market term. > What it would normally mean in a software context is a software system > that spanned multiple organizations within a larger federation (such > as many departments within a large company). Unless Karaf is actually > doing something as an application, like a CMS or Peopleware or SAP or > Subversion, then it doesn't make sense to say that it is creating > enterprise servers (if there is ever any sense in that phrase). > Saying that it provides OSGI services that are commonly used by > enterprise servers is fine. > Karaf is currently used as the basis for ServiceMix (an Enterprise Service Bus) and Geronimo (implementation of Java Enterprise Edition). I think ActiveMQ (JMS broker) will use it too for the next major version. Other typical enterprise servers that could use Karaf are James (mail server) or DS (ldap). So I think it's a fair description or Karaf's main purpose, and the intent was really not to use buzzwords as you seem to imply. > > I understand your main concern to be that the description is too broad, > is that correct? Given that the applicability of Karaf is broad and generic, > do you have any further suggestions on how better to describe it to make it > sound more focused? Thanks. > > Yes, but my suggestion was inaccurate because I don't know enough > about Karaf. I just need it to be specific enough to exclude what > Felix and Sling are already doing, at least, and preferably exclude > other applications of OSGI as well. And you can be specific to Java, > unless you actually intend not to be. > FWIW, Karaf reuses Felix components a lot and Sling could use Karaf as it base runtime (though it doesn't). OSGi is already a java specific technology, so I don't think we need to be redundant either. > ....Roy > > p.s. and PLEASE don't CC private lists on public email > > -- Cheers, Guillaume Nodet ------------------------ Blog: http://gnodet.blogspot.com/ ------------------------ Open Source SOA http://fusesource.com
