Latest News from Mirko Jahn

OSGi vs. Jigsaw - Why can’t we TALK?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:01:48 EDT

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 [...]

The Quest for Software Reuse

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:02:50 EDT

Inspired by Peter’s comment I am following up on my last post on “The Myth about Software Reuse”. I received quiet a lot feedback concerning the topic and I felt I should share some of my thoughts and visions in order to answer some of the questions and destroy the concerns I may have provoked. In [...]

The myth of software reuse

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:24:38 EDT

The ones of you who know me, know that I believe in software reuse and I am trying to evangelize about it for quiet some time. Methods, Classes, Aspects, Components, Modules, Software Product Lines, you name it - everything is focused on reuse to some extend. With OSGi for the first time we are able [...]

Extenders in OSGi - what is all the buzz about?

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:14:07 EST

It feels like recently extenders became extremely fashionable among the OSGi community. Eclipse is using an extender like pattern to track their plugin.xml configurations and Spring DM introduced the plain osgi extender together with a special web extender. It seems like everyone has one lately, but what is all the buzz about and how should [...]

The Dynamic Import Issue

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:09:23 EST

After some less OSGi technology centric posts I am now getting back to the meat and will highlight the problems involved with dynamic imports. In well designed OSGi applications the “DynamicImport-Package” header is obsolete should be. Unfortunately not every code is OSGi aware. Actually it is not the missing OSGi awareness that is the core [...]

Interview for the IDN at ICW

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:56:12 EST

Last week I gave an interview for my companies developer network. Of course such thing isn’t much of a big deal. I mean it’s the company you are working for - they are always looking for content for their website, but for me however this was different. In my blog I usually tend to talk [...]

Componentization wars part II - Guerrilla tactics

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:36:33 EST

Usually when I am blogging, I am talking about the latest technology, standards or general trends. This time however, I wonna talk about politics. No, not about the elections in US, but about politics in software development practiced by the big players to achieve their business goals. Don’t get me wrong from the start. I [...]

The Whole - More than the sum of all parts

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:43:03 EST

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 [...]

OSGi dynamics and legacy code - taming the beast in the future?

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:34:55 EDT

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 [...]

Some thought on the OSGi R4.2 early draft

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:00:21 EDT

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 [...]

Adopting OSGi in Java Application Frameworks: A Case Study

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:45:00 EDT

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, the migration of existing application frameworks is slow due to significant redesign and re-implementation efforts involved. We present an alternative lightweight approach - an adaptation of existing Java application framework for component based OSGi environment. Adaptation, as opposed to migration, eliminates the necessity of modularizing or redesigning the existing framework. This is particularly important when existing software platform and the associated programming model is mature and has already penetrated into the market place. As a general adaptation solution we introduce a thin layer between the OSGi Service Platform and the existing framework. Furthermore, we present the case study of an OSGi adaptation of a popular open source Java platform developed by IBM Research for integration of software analytics. Our results demonstrate that the adaptation approach is not limited to the presented case, but is broadly applicable to a variety of Java application frameworks.