build2be/com/e something is going on over there

Here are my take aways from the symposia day at ESE 2008. The PDE Require Bundle section should move to the right side. Orbit needs some love! Write bug reports! Modeling in e4 is controversial. (Now that’s a surprise!) The modeling guys hate XML. A lady bug screen saver looks nice. SWT is on diet and will not get any cake.

I got this while trying to install new version of subclipse on top of eclipse rcp edition of ganymede release. Running eclipse with -clean didn’t help. !ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine 4 4 2008-11-18 13:17:31.218 !MESSAGE An error occurred during provisioning. !SUBENTRY 1 org.eclipse.equinox.p2.touchpoint.eclipse 4 0 2008-11-18 13:17:31.218 !MESSAGE Failed to prepare partial IU: [R]org.tigris.subversion.clientadapter.javahl 1.5.4. Then I thought - what the heck, [...] 2008-11-18T11:19:13Z Ahti

Mobile industry is transforming rapidly. Mobile operating systems and runtime stacks are at the center of this change. Mobile Linux, Android, and the lately announced Symbian Foundation, the trend is clear. The Mobile OSs are becoming license free and in most cases open source.  The same trend can also be observed on the runtimes that run on these mobile platforms as well. WebKit, which most (S60 , iPhone, Android) of the mobile browsers and web runtimes are based on, is license free and open source. Python, license free and open source. Flash runtime, has no license fees and open source. Java, NOT free and NOT really open source for the manufacturers to ship. Things do not look very good for Java on the innovation front as well. Manufacturers have to deal with branding and compliance test license costs for mobile Java. This is an additional cost on top of acquiring or developing the Java runtime itself. After all the costs, the end result is MIDP which is not really the bang you want to get for your buck. When the innovative value of the runtimes are questioned, I am sure MIDP product managers are having hard time to justify the resources to put MIDP on the phones. The main reason that MIDP is keeping afloat is its huge install base but it is only a matter of time where other runtimes such as WebKit makes this irrelevant. I believe the root of the problem is mobile Java vendor(s) have no alternate business model to the license fees. They have been trying to prevent a free Java to appear on Mobile phones just to be able to keep the licensing fees. The open source license choice of Sun’s open Java is partly due to that. Do you recall Apache’s open letter to Sun? The main reason for Sun putting “field of use” restrictions on JCK is another effort to prevent a free and open source Java to appear on mobile phones. Sadly, this is in expense of mobile Java and for a business model that can not be sustained for a long time. So what are the possibilities for the future of Java on mobile? The obvious scenario is it will cease to exist in mobile space by time with the exception of Android. Motorola lately announced that it reduces the software platforms that it uses and will start using Android as one of its preferred platforms. This is significant for two reasons because Motorola is still one of the major phone manufacturers and it is the specification lead for the MIDP3 JSR in JCP. MIDP3 is under specification work for almost 4 years now and I guess we will be waiting for it some more. Although the features and innovation of the MIDP3 is not significant anymore but the delays of its arrival is an indication. Android is a confusing player in the mobile space. Officially it is not Java. It uses the Java language and Sun appears to like it (I can’t really figure out why), at least Android was the main mobile demo platform in the last JavaOne. Android blend of Java is designed as an integral part of the mobile platform rather than a runtime on top of it. This makes it powerful but makes it hard to port to other mobile platforms. This actually brings us to the next scenario. Android Java becomes so favored that OSS projects start for porting Android to other operating systems such as Symbian, Windows Mobile etc.  This is a big effort, I am not even sure if it is feasible. I am sure that it requires the collaboration of at least Nokia, and Google.  Also the port must be done in parallel to avoid fragmentation. So it is a low possibility for the time being. And my last scenario of the day is another open source implementation. Let’s assume for a moment that the mobile manufacturers and the mobile Java platform providers have realized that they are in a crash course. They decide that instead of trying to implement the same old proprietary MIDP in house, they can collaborate for a MIDP implementation that everyone can also use commercially. They can then start to spare some of their resources from implementing proprietary to adding innovative features and adopting new directions to mobile Java. The biggest obstacle with this scenario is companies are not really good at creating new business models and unfortunately such a change requires new business models for Java vendors, phone manufacturers, mobile network operators and even internet service companies. This is all the scenarios I have for the day. Like them, dislike it, have a better one ? Comments are open, fire away. 2008-11-18T11:17:34Z http://www.gorkem-ercan.com/2008/11/will-java-have-place-in-future-of.html gorkem noreply@blogger.com

Hello,We'd like to invite you to Eclipse DemoCamp in Poznan - a part of word-wide series of events organized by Eclipse community. We're meeting on Monday evening, November 24th, in Piwnica 21 pub. Starting at 18:00.We'll be promoting Eclipse as an IDE and RCP platform, this time with our special guest - Wassim Melhem - committer on Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment project, who is currently working on commercial database tooling based on Eclipse. Dawid Weiss from Poznan University of Technology will tell a few words about combining Carrot search engine, and finally Bartosz Michalik will show his work on PDE Product Customization - a heaven (and hell at once) for all RCP integrators.As always, this time again, you'll have chance to sell yourself, your product, share experiences or even rant a little bit during lightning talks. Last time they were really popular, so prepare good, as you may have to fight for your 5 minutes on stage :DTo better support discussions, we'll have some free beer, pizza and DanceDanceRevolution for most excited Eclipse fans ;-)All details are at http://wiki.eclipse.org/DemoCamp/Poznan. Please register there (directly on wiki, or by sending email to one of organizers).

I’m sitting in the RT symposium and it’s a nice group. It’s not too crowded. Unfortunately, there weren’t many position papers. I think that’s a bad. Putting together a position paper is not too much work. Everybody attending a symposium should do so. Anyway, the agenda that Jeff, Martin and Heiko came up with is great. [...]

I learned recently the clean way to replace all my Display.getDefault() method calls: PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getDisplay(); Here is the Javadoc for this method : Code should always ask the workbench for the display rather than rely on Display.getDefault() Am I the last not aware about this method ?? If no, this post may be can help someone else for example spending [...]

Well, it looks like it must be winter, because I see Orion high in the sky outside my window.  I don't know how it is, but there is something comforting about the onset of this season, and those early nights when the great Hunter rises to watch over those of us that dwell in the northern hemisphere.  I can almost feel his presence.The fire in the grate dims, and even Tess has stopped purring and is huddling close for warmth.  I ask myself, What have I done for her lately?  Dished out a can of wet food, cleaned the litter pan, washed the water fountain.  And what has she done for me?  Only offered me the simple, unconditional, absolute affection of one of nature's most perfect animals.  I feel that I have got the better part of this exchange.

We've been working on the Portal of late, adding features people have been asking for. Here are a couple:Projects have been asking for the ability to inherit their meta-data from projects higher up the chain so that they don't need to maintain meta-data for all sub-projects. As bug 198541 and the Standardized Groups initiative progress this will be more helpful: components don't need to have meta-data filled in. So Bjorn and I added simple meta-data inheritance. If you work on the technology.foo project and you want to inherit the meta-data from the technology project you simply add the 'inherit' key and the accessor classes we use for all of the data access will simply walk up the tree until it finds the first level that does not inherit. Additional features may come as we see how this works for people. Here's how simple it is:Required fields now show a red asterisk so that you can tell which fields they are before the form is submitted. This should improve usability of some of the forms substantially. See the image above for an example.Enjoy!

Same procedure as every year going to Eclipse Summit or EclipseCon:Because my OSGI Enterprise solution needs it all:Equinox, OSGI, Riena, RCP, Modeling (oAW, EMF, UML), UI, PDE, P2, .......its so hard to decide which of the sessions to choose ;-)I'll arrive Tuesday evening - so I can't go to the e4 and RT SymposiumHope to see some of you in Ludwigsburgekke

Don’t miss our CloudFree talk on Thursday if you are in Ludwigsburg this week and attending the Eclipse Summit Europe!

This entry of my blog series „HowTo build an OSGI Enterprise Server“ will talk about the „EJB3 Container“ managed by EasyBeans. EasyBeans uses by default Felix as OSGI Framework - this blog series describes how to use it all under Eclipse Equinox together with Eclipse Riena.You have to follow some rules how to start the OSGI application: start - levels, start - order, automatic-start ... Please read important instructions in chapter „Server starten“. A short overview:Our OSGI Enterprise application automatically starts a „Server Agent - Bundle“ - this agent contains an OSGI Service Tracker watching if EasyBeans initializes all EJB3 Container to see when all is ready.We also start our domain-specific „Server Bundles“ which are tracking to see if our ServerService is registered from „Server Agent“ Bundle.Server - Agent - Bundle and Server - BundlesOur (domain-specific) „Server - Bundles“ and the „Server - Agent - Bundle“ are started automatically using Default - Start - Level (in our example Level 3).The „Server - Bundles“ are waiting until a RienaEasyBeansServerService signals, that our Server with Riena- and EasyBeans - Functionality is available.The most important dependencies of our „Server - Agent“ - Bundle:The „Server - Agent“tracks Services from EasyBeans using an EasybeansServiceTrackerregisters Remote - „Business - Interfaces“ for Riena - Remotingregisters RienaEasyBeansServerService when or server is availableEasybeansServiceTracker - FilterAn OSGI ServiceTracker should only track needed Services - so we have to define a Filter used as Parameter creating a new ServiceTracker. The Filter:(|(objectClass=org.osgi.service.cm.ManagedServiceFactory)(objectClass=org.ow2.easybeans.api.EZBContainer)(objectClass=org.ow2.easybeans.component.jdbcpool.JDBCPoolComponent)(service.pid=*RemoteManagerI*Bean))What kind of OSGI Services we'll get using this Filter ?ManagedServiceFactory:EasyBeans registers for each EasyBeans Component a Service of Type ManagedServiceFactory:{org.osgi.service.cm.ManagedServiceFactory}={service.pid=org.ow2.easybeans.component.carol.carolcomponent,..Registered by bundle:...easyBeans/bundles/easybeans-component-carol_1.1.0-...jarBundles using service:.../org.eclipse.equinox.cm_1.0.0.v20080509-1800.jar.../org.ekkehard.server.agent_1.0.0.jarTracking these Services we can test if all EasyBeans Components are correct initialized.EZBContainer:After successfully processing our „EJB - Bundles“ and „PersistenceContext - Bundles“ from EasyBeans a Service of Type EZBContainer is registered:{org.ow2.easybeans.api.EZBContainer}={service.id=103}Registered by bundle: .../org.ekkehard.foo.datamanager.bean_1.0.0.jarBundles using service:.../easybeans-core_1.1.0-M3-SNAPSHOT.jar.../org.ekkehard.server.agent_1.0.0.jarTracking these Services we know, that EasyBeans has created an EJB3Container for our Bundle - and if its a „PersistenceContext - Bundle“ then we also know, that Hibernate has done all the Mapping and Binding.JDBCPoolComponent:EasyBeans JDBCPoolComponent registers always after initializing a DataSource an OSGI Service of Type JDBCPoolComponent:{org.ow2.easybeans.component.api.EZBComponent,org.ow2.easybeans.component.jdbcpool.JDBCPoolComponent}={... jndiName="foo_data_source_hsql"....Using the Property jndiName we can test if our DataSource is available.service.pid:We also filter Services containing a service.pid of our pattern for Remote - Business - Interfaces: „*RemoteManagerI*Bean“. The pattern depends from your naming schema.Tracking those Services will give us OSGI Services of Type ManagedService. The we do some additional testing to see if some Properties are set from EasyBeans. If true, we know that its a ManagedService created by EasyBeans for one of our @Remote - „Business - Interfaces“.Now we can register this @Remote - „Business - Interface“ for Riena Remoting, to provide a Riena Published Endpoint for our Rich Clients.This is also the reason why the „Server - Agent - Bundle“ needs Package-Import-Dependencies to our „Business - Interface - Bundles“ - if you dont use Riena, then you dont need these dependencies.RienaEasyBeansServerServiceIf all tracking was successfully, then our „Server - Agent - Bundle“ registers an RienaEasyBeansServerService as OSGI Service. Because this Service will also be registered as Riena Remote Endpoint, our „Server - Bundles“ and also our „Rich Client - Bundles“ can track if the Server of a specific domain is live and ready-to-go.When knows the „Server - Agent“ that all was successfully processed ?All EasyBeans Components are initializedAll DataSources are avilableAll EJB Container are availableThere are some special tricks how to track and test and start bundles - but this will be part of the next blog.There's an this index of this blog series in the column right beside the blog entries. blog in german

It’s almost the time to start packing for Eclipse Summit Europe. I’ll be arriving at Ludwigsburg this tuesday evening, so if anyone feels like having a late refreshment, let me know. On Wednesday I’ll be assisting to some of the talks (still have not decided) and I expect to have some time to talk with other attendees. Thursday [...]

For those of you that feel a little run in the morning is a good cure for any blues - or simply fear that all the hard late work will warrant it - there will be a short 5-6 km tun in the morning starting from the entrance of Hotel Nestor.Just be there by 7:20 and we will take a slow scroll around the parks of the center of Ludwigsburg. Any ideas for good routes will be much appreciated.See you Tuesday morning!

There are just under 26 hours left to get in your submissions for the "Better Than MovieOS" Photoshop Challenge, but we've already gotten some great submissions. We'll be announcing the winners early next week, as well as details on the next contest which will run though January 12, 2009. Details to follow. 'Till then, here's a teaser: Play For Schwag Anybody searching for action? Anything to fill your empty wardrobe, yeah Any place you've got a 'puter Any takers wanna submit their designs? With the fire and lightning shooting from your hands And creativ'ty written 'cross your eyes Your itchy fingers on a cordless mouse there Your passion's hot and this contest's taking flight Inside the convention The cover charge's free for accepted talks Now, I hear you screaming out for mercy Last submission standing wins the fight Too late and you'll be out, nothing you can do Contest's done 12th January Over the holidays When you've got some free time It's time to play because ya know Eclipse is you If you win this time, you'll be the champion And get a prize, HA, that's just impossible! Do you play for keeps? Do you play for Eclipse? Do you play to win? Do you play cuz it's fun? Or play for schwag? Megadeth - Play For Blood

Wow, it's hard to believe that the last time I blogged was nearly two weeks ago. Where has the time gone? Seeing as I wrote my last blog entry from my hotel room in Reston, Virginia on the eve of EclipseWorld 2008, is seems rather fitting that I write this, my next blog entry, from my hotel room in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on the eve of Eclipse Summit Europe 2008. As a colleague of mine, who shall remain nameless, might say, "I'm so filled with joy for Eclipse Summit Europe that I cannot contain it!".Like Ed, it looks as though I may need to clone myself in order to participate in everything I want to here at ESE. I haven't decided yet which talks I'll attend, but I suppose I had better do that soon, before things get really busy. At this point I know I'll be participating in the Eclipse Members' meeting tomorrow (Monday) and the Modeling Symposium on Tuesday.On Wednesday, I'll be delivering two short talks. The first, entitled "Data Models at Eclipse", will provide an overview of the different kinds, or levels, of data models and explore how they are supported by projects/components at Eclipse. The second, "What's New in MDT?", will provide an overview of the Model Development Tools project and, in particular, some of its noteworthy recent additions. If you're going to be at the Summit, I hope to see you there. Of course, if you can't be there for whatever reason, you can always view the slides from the submission page(s)...

This week will be the Management Developers Conference in Santa Clara, CA. Mark Johnson (IBM) and Dave Snelling (Fujitsu) will be doing a talk and demo featuring CMDB Federation (CMDBf). For those unfamiliar, CMDBf is “a standard for federating resource data in heterogeneous repositories” developed by a DMTF working group. Note the following from [...]

OK, I admit, it is a bit late to look for a hotel for Eclipse Summit Europe 2008. Today I tried about 30 hotels. It seems all hotels in Ludwigsburg are booked out. Well, I thought no big deal: I would follow the S-Train line and book a hotel close to any S-train station. Well, all hotels are booked out along the S-train lines, including the hotel close to the Stuttgart main station!? I finally found a hotel not far from Ludwigsburg, next to the S-Train station in Asperg, but it turned out that the address was listed wrongly in google maps and the hotel is not even close to any train station....It's not that bad -- with public traffic it is 1h30 to 1h45 from my home in Heidelberg to the "Forum am Schlosspark". The only bad thing is that my latest train is around 9:30PM, and the good discussions are usually late in the bar....That means waking up early (it's really early for me, since I "virtually" live in the EST time zone -- I go to bed at 6AM and wake up at 1:30PM)... If you found a hotel in <30 min distance to summit, let me know.Michael Scharfs Eclipse and Java Blog http://MichaelScharf.blogspot.com/

In 3.5M3, we introduced two new API methods, showEditor(IEditorReference) and hideEditor(IEditorReference), in IWorkbenchPage. This is an interim solution that was proposed as an attempt to resolve bug 11001. Paul has provided a great description about what those two methods do and what we’re trying to achieve here in his comment so I suggest you read [...]

Lars Corneliussen has written an open letter to Doug Purdy about interop between OSLO and EMF. Doug has said that he'd be interested in having the two worlds interoperate ("We want to engage, particularly with the Open Source Community, in order to make sure that we can invent the future together."). Personally, I also think that would be very useful.So please let us know what you think and help spread the word. True interop between Microsoft's OSLO and Eclipse's EMF would be very benefitial for both communities.