Last week the OSGi website[1] published the early draft of the OSGi R4.2
specification[2]. Reason enough to have a short look at what is covered in
the upcoming release.
First of all one has to notice that this is not a minor release as the
version number may suggest. Release 4.2 is actually way more significant than
the R4.1 release last year. At some points I would even say it is more
important than the R4 release, because with that one usage becomes way more
easier, especially for none OSGi experts. But first things first. What is
actually in the new draft?
Core design changes/ enhancements:
RFC 120 - Security Enhancements
RFC 121 - Bundle Tracker
RFC 125 - Bundle License
RFC 126 - Service Registry Hooks
RFC 128 - Accessing Exit Values from Applications
RFC 129 - Initial... (more)
Migration of software systems to the OSGi platform is gaining momentum with
wide acceptance of the OSGi technology as the dynamic module system for Java.
This transition is of special interest when it comes to popular Java
application frameworks, which attract a growing number of Java developers
around the world. Although the technical merits of the OSGi platform are
broadly recognized, ... (more)
Before starting, I just want to make clear that I am not a member of the OSGi
Alliance nor a participant of any EG. I just happen to use OSGi since Eclipse
started to investigate OSGi as their componentization model in its core.
Since then I got more and more attached to OSGi and I don’t want to give up
any of its features, so I guess you can call me a fanboy if you like. Of
course, I am... (more)
Legacy code in OSGi has always been a problem. OSGi has such a dynamic
nature, most libraries are either not aware of the potential errors that can
be imposed by suddenly disappearing bundles or just use techniques not
suitable for the OSGi programming model, like absolute paths, usage of file
references instead of URLs, context class loaders and others alike. Despite
these, I would call... (more)
A lot of people are following the buzz about OSGi now and are excited about
all the things it can do for you. A great world of new opportunities. Now,
after the first draft of OSGi 4.2 it very much looks like we’re getting
even more as an official OSGi standard (with RFC 124). The formally called
Spring Dynamic Modules (in short SpringDM) is going to be OSGi-efied. Today,
I want to take ... (more)
Mirko Jahn worked for several years as an independent software consultant and tutor before joining the Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) group at IBM Research. At present, his major research areas cover component-based development strategies, component repositories, and migration approaches toward modular applications, along with service-oriented architecture. Mr. Jahn is heavily involved in making use of OSGi component-based developement 
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Lev Kozakov
Hal Hilderbrad
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Per Sjofors
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Data Recovery Services
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