JTS and WS-TX implementations go LGPL

Back when ArjunaTS was acquired by JBoss the decision was made to licence the core transaction engine (ArjunaCore) and the local JTA under LGPL, but use GPL for the OTS (JTS) implementation as well as for XTS, our Web Services Transactions component. There were some strategic decisions at the time (a dual-licence model) that made sense for JBoss, but with the Red Hat acquisition we've been reconsidering. As a result, the next release of JBossTS will be entirely based on LGPL, i.e., there will no longer be any GPL component. Hopefully this will satisfy those users and customers out there who wanted to use JTS or XTS but found that they were uncomfortable with GPL. From a community perspective, let's also hope that this helps encourage everyone to get behind JBossTS and continue to ensure it is the premier open source transaction engine out there. Next step: Project Blacktie.

JavaOne

Some of the team are at JavaOne. Come and say hi.

DTF open sourced

Back in 2001 we had tens of hundreds of tests for the HP Transaction Service and a team of dedicated QA engineers. It took a week to run all of the tests across the combination of OS, hardware, JDK and database combinations. When we span out we didn't have those resources so had to develop the Distributed Test Framework, which is many ways is a Grid infrastructure: it supports the automatic deployment of services and software across arbitrary nodes, VM, OS etc. to execute tests and collate the results. It is truly distributed in nature and runs distributed tests (where the client(s) and service(s) run across different combinations of VM, hardware, OS, db etc.) We managed to have the same QA coverage with a fraction of the people and in a fraction of the time (and cost). I'm happy to say that we've finally open sourced it as well!

Shout it from the roof tops!

Don't you just hate it when people don't research things sufficiently? How many times do I have to point out over the past 10 years that we support Web Services transactions and have been the only open source implementation to participate in interoperability workshops with the other main transaction manager offerings out there? So let me say it one more time: we support Web Services transactions and specifically WS-TX.

Sometimes it's easier to ask

While waiting for something to compile at 1am on the night before the night before Christmas, I came across Andrew's brush with JBossTS. There are some interesting quotes, like "JBossTS hasn't been built or developed using eclipse as far as I can tell" (JBossTS began life years before there was such a thing as Eclipse), and "Documentation surrounding great software tools is sometimes just laughable" (I like to think our docs are pretty good, given they've been updated for the past 20 years; but nothing's perfect) but overall I understand some of his concerns. The blog trail hasn't been updated since July, but if you're still struggling with this, get in touch here or ask questions on the Design Forum: I'd be more than happy to help fill in the blanks and maybe in the process improve JBossTS based on your feedback.

Transaction Processing in a Service Oriented Architecture

This should be an interesting cross post about the evolution of transaction processing and how it has been shaped by Web Services and SOA.

A minor rant around stand-alone transaction management and standards

Over the past few years there's been a backlash against application servers (both commercial and open source), with some people saying they're too heavy-weight. I'm not going to get into that argument here, but what does surprise me is the number of open source transaction managers that are trying to differentiate themselves on this very fact, as if it was something new and wonderful. Well guys I hate to break it to you but we, IBM, BEA and a few others have been doing that for years. In the open source arena, JBossTS was the first to run outside of an application server simply because it began life before there was such a thing! We've continued that over the intervening years, but maybe I just need to make it more explicit: JBossTS does not require any application server within which to run. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but it's also highly embeddable, which we have proved time and again (yes, footprint size is very small, but the architecture is designed so that it doesn't require anything from the underlying environment).

Then there are some transaction service implementations (typically open source, but not exclusively) that seem to need to try to differentiate themselves by pouring scorn on transaction standards like OTS/JTS or WS-T: guys, if you have problems with these things then get involved in the process, but don't cry foul because the rest of the industry (and users) have got together to develop them. Oh, and yes while it's true that JBossTS has been at the forefront of these (and other) standards since the start, the architecture is not built on any of them since, once again, with the exception of XA they all came after JBossTS (aka Arjuna) started life.

Now maybe we don't go around "blowing our own trumpet" enough, but I think that's got a lot to do with our background: in academia there's a heavy peer review process that permeates throughout everything you do and unsubstantiated statements quickly become something you avoid like the plague. We've had 20+ years to document what we've done in this way, so everything has been verified and screened for accuracy. Maybe we assume too much that people will check that backlog of information, particularly in this day and age with so many good internet search engines. However, maybe we need to change that and start revisiting our previous publications and discussions more to refresh people's memories.

So if you're a user looking for some or all of the following: power, configurability, performance, openness, pedigree, flexibility, excellent documentation, standards (where necessary), extensibility, embeddability, stand-alone or application server deployment options, continuous vision, knowledge base, 24x7 support, etc. etc., then there really is only one option: JBossTS. TIBCO, webMethods and many others over the past 20+ years have made the JBossTS choice and found it to be the right one.