From: Dan Bandera, OSGi Alliance President
It has been over twenty-one years since the OSGi Alliance was formed -
sponsored by several major corporations such as Ericsson, IBM, Oracle, and
Sun Microsystems - to create open specifications, reference
implementations, and compliance tests to establish an architecture and
programming model that was modular, dynamic, and service-oriented. These
standards were initially targeted at “Internet gateways”, what we would
call today an Edge Computing device, but over the years would address a
plethora of computing environments.
The world has changed a lot since 1999. Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems,
Ericsson is a much different company, and IBM and Oracle are no longer the
biggest names in tech. The world of software specifications development
has also seen vast changes, being heavily impacted and influenced today by
open source projects.
In 1999 open source projects were just starting to become recognized by
major Information Technology providers. The Apache Software Foundation was
just getting started, the Linux operating system was beginning to be
supported by computer hardware manufacturers, and it would be another 5
years before the Eclipse Foundation was established.
Now open source projects have become the primary source for open technology
for software developers. Even the OSGi Alliance depends on open source
projects for the vast majority of its reference implementations. A “code
first” approach has taken hold for open standards too. We can see examples
of this at the Eclipse Foundation in their Jakarta EE platform project and
at OASIS in their OASIS Open Projects.
Another thing has changed too, the OSGi Alliance no longer has the critical
mass necessary to continue as a stand-alone organization.
When this became evident to the OSGi Board of Directors, they began to
examine and plan how best to deal with the future. After a great deal of
work examining every reasonable alternative it was decided the best course
of action was to transfer the assets of the OSGi Alliance to the Eclipse
Foundation, with the expectation that future specification development will
continue there, and dissolve the OSGi Alliance. The OSGi Board of
Directors has reached an agreement with the Eclipse Foundation to establish
an Eclipse OSGi Working Group which will be the home for the continued
evolution of the OSGi specifications. Current OSGi Alliance members and
others that wish to participate will need to be members of the Eclipse
Foundation itself, and also members of the Eclipse OSGi Working Group.
The Eclipse Foundation intends to waive the membership fees for the OSGi
Working Group for the rest of 2020.
To quote Mike Milinkovich, the Executive Director of the Eclipse
Foundation, “The Eclipse Foundation is pleased to become the home for the
future evolution of the OSGi's specifications. Our working group model and
the Eclipse Foundation Specification Process both provide a natural
framework for the important work that continues under the OSGi banner, and
our communities are both very comfortable with each other already. We thank
the OSGi Alliance’s Board of Directors for their trust, and we look forward
to working with OSGi Alliance’s members and developers as we continue down
this path.”
I certainly hope that everyone will join the efforts at the Eclipse
Foundation to continue the work that started 21 years ago.
It has been a pleasure to serve you all these years and I look forward to
continuing to work with you in the Eclipse OSGi Working Group.
Best wishes for the future,
Dan Bandera, President of the OSGi Alliance
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FAQ
Q: Why the Eclipse Foundation?
A; The OSGi Alliance and the Eclipse Foundation share many of the same
members, and we have had a long, synergistic relationship between our
organizations.
The Eclipse Equinox project has hosted the OSGi Framework Reference
Implementation for many years and many releases.
The Eclipse Foundation, like the OSGi Alliance, is a non-profit,
vendor-neutral organization which simplifies the transfer of OSGi
Alliance assets and mission to them.
We have held joint EclipseCon / OSGi Community Event developer
conferences for the past 8 years.
The Eclipse Foundation is home for many Java technology related open
source projects like Jakarta EE, OpenJ9, OMR, MicroProfile,
Transformer, Vert.x and many more.
The Eclipse Foundation has developed a robust specification process
over the last two years which can produce specifications allowing for
Intellectual Property grants and benefits very similar to those of
OSGi Specifications.
The Eclipse Foundation continues to thrive and grow which provides a
safe home for the planned Eclipse OSGi Working Group.
Q: Where will we find the old OSGi specifications in the future ?
A: Currently published OSGi specifications are available at
https://docs.osgi.org/. The planned Eclipse OSGi Working Group will decide
if a different location is appropriate.
Q: For existing published OSGi Specifications what will be
users/implementors rights be after the OSGi Alliance dissolves?
A: There will be no change in rights. The existing published OSGi
Specifications will remain available under their existing license.
Q: What about reference implementations and compliance tests?
A: Almost all existing OSGi Reference Implementations are in open source
projects at the Eclipse Foundation or the Apache Software Foundation
(Eclipse Equinox, Apache Aries, Apache Felix, etc.) and should continue to
be available directly from those projects. Those that are not will most
likely be made available in a GitHub repository sometime in the future. The
planned Eclipse OSGi Working Group will make this decision.
Q: How will the Eclipse specification process differ from the OSGi
specification process?
A: BIG Question! There will be changes. Please see the following resources
(in the order listed):
https://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2019/january/specification_process.php
https://waynebeaton.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/eclipse-foundation-specification-process-step-by-step/
https://www.eclipse.org/projects/efsp/
Q: Will new specifications from the Eclipse OSGi Working Group have a
different license ?
A: It is expected that specifications released from the Eclipse OSGi
Working Group will use the Eclipse Foundation Specification License. See
https://www.eclipse.org/legal/efsl.php.
Q: How will this transition affect the development of Bnd/Bndtools?
A: This transition won't affect Bnd/Bndtools which is a separate open
source project.
Q: What are the next steps? What should be done to participate in the
Eclipse OSGi Working Group?
A: To participate in future OSGi specification development you will first
need to be a member of the Eclipse Foundation itself. Subsequent to that,
you will also need to be a member of the Eclipse OSGi Working Group.
Q: How can we join the Eclipse OSGi Working Group?
A: At this time, the Eclipse OSGi Working Group has yet to be formed. So
right now, you can join the Eclipse Foundation itself and we will
communicate when the Eclipse OSGi Working Group is ready to be joined.
Q: Who do I contact if I have further questions?
A: For OSGi Alliance questions, you can contact the OSGi Executive Director
John Ehrig. For Eclipse Foundation questions, you can visit
https://www.eclipse.org/membership/, or contact Eclipse Foundation VP
Member Services Paul White.
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