For this first newsletter of 2009, I am happy to report that not only does OSGi technology continue to gain significant adoption in the “enterprise” space (e.g., it made eWeek’s list of “Top 10 Application Development Stories of 2008” — click to see), I am hearing signs that interest in OSGi technology is significantly increasing in the “residential” space. Now this was the original target market for OSGi technology and due to a combination of business and technical reasons, this market did not take off. However, it now looks as if this market is primed for success, and I believe that OSGi technology will play a large role in this space. Some anecdotal evidence for this occurred at a panel session that I hosted on Device Management at IEEE CCNC 2009 in early January. This panel session included someone from the Home Gateway Initiative, someone from a device manufacturer, and someone from an application developer; and they all made strong references to OSGi technology and how it uniquely fills a need for delivering residential services to consumers. In fact, the application developer mentioned that service providers are now telling them that it is a requirement that any applications must run on an OSGi service platform! Service provider pull for OSGi technology is what I believed was really necessary to gain significant adoption. I’m very happy to report that the OSGi Alliance crossed over the 100 member mark in December and has continued to add members since. We also have a new users group on-board (United Kingdom). All of these items point to an ever growing ecosystem of organizations using and interested in OSGi technology that bode well for continued success and increasing adoption in many markets.

OSGi TECHNOLOGY MAKES HEADLINES

OSGi Alliance Marks 10^th Anniversary with 100 Members and Millions of Deployments
The OSGi^TM Alliance announced today that 100 member companies now promote and further the proven standard for modularized Java^TM and Java-based technologies. The swell of support follows recent member-driven OSGi technology advancements and deployments in the enterprise and mobile markets and builds on the organization’s successful roots in embedded markets.

Over the past 10 years, members have created a vibrant ecosystem that drives and promotes the dynamic module system for Java, the OSGi Service Platform. Read more

This year we again have a fantastic OSGi program for OSGi DevCon/EclipseCon. OSGi is clearly becoming important at EclipseCon because it was one of the best submitted categories. This growth is also visible in the attention OSGi gets at other conferences. However, the OSGi DevCon is clearly the place to visit if you want to learn about OSGi or want to talk to the people that helped make OSGi what it is today.

Clearly, the OSGi DevCon/EclipseCon week will be filled with highly interesting talks and tutorials. However, there will be more. As usual the OSGi Alliance hosts a BOF, including drinks. During this BOF a number of board members will be present and of course many of the key people that made the OSGi specifications possible. For further information please contact our evangelist and technical director, Peter Kriens.

OSGi Specifications Download Improved
In response to concerns raised by people downloading the OSGi specifications, the OSGi Alliance has changed the download pages to simplify the download process. Specifications can now be downloaded from direct links on the download pages rather than requiring the links be sent in an e-mail. Specifications Download...

_______________________

Mobile Expert Group
Last year, beside some simple maintenance of the specification, Mobile Expert Group was setting up a project to standardize the Eclipse eRCP platform. The most important work item for this year is the execution of this project. This is the first time OSGi is taking an existing open source product, and creates a standard for it. The project is executed in cooperation with the Eclipse Foundation. The 1.2 version of eRCP will be created along with the standard and it will be used as the reference implementation of the specification. The existing test suite of eRCP - mostly unit test, created by the developers - will be extended to be a full TCK.

_______________________

Core Platform Expert Group
The 4.2 version of the OSGi specifications are currently well underway. We have released 2 early draft documents in 2008 consisting of a collection of RFC design documents. We are now in the process of writing/changing the specifications based upon those RFCs as well as other improvements. During the course of 2009, we will roll out the next versions of the specifications. We currently plan a public draft of the Core and Compendium specifications to be published in March or April. In June, we plan to publish the final 4.2 Core and Compendium specification along with a public draft of the Enterprise specification. Finally, we plan to publish the final 4.2 Enterprise specification in the fourth quarter. Plans are also being made for a 4.2 Residential specification to be published. Planning is still early on that, but it will likely be published in the first half of 2010. 2009 will again be an interesting year for OSGi technology.

_______________________

Enterprise Expert Group
The EEG reached an important milestone with the vote to approve four RFCs as input to the new specification: RCF 119, Distributed OSGi, RFC 124, Blueprint Service; RFC 98, Java Transaction Service (JTA), and RFC 139, Java Management Extensions (JMX). Drafts of RFCs 98, 119, and 124 were included in the November early draft release (http://www.osgi.org/download/osgi-4.2-early-draft2.pdf), which gives everyone the opportunity to take a look at these important new designs. More detail about these and the rest of the enterprise release features will be provided at OSGi Con/Eclipse Con in March.

_______________________

Residential Expert Group
The Residential Expert Group had a joined meeting with CPEG in November 2008 and another meeting on its own in January 2009 in Cologne. Members of REG also attended the Bundle Plugfest in Montpellier in October 2008 in order to work on reference implementations together with members of other EGs. REG coordinated its work with CPEG regarding RFC 131 (Multiple Service Provider Separation) and RFC 144 (Configuration Admin Extension), which are planned to become part of the Core and Compendium specifications of Release 4.2. REG also continued to work on RFC 140 (Residential Management Tree), RFC 141 (DMT Admin Extension), while a new RFC 145 (Home Gateway Device Service) has been started by Deutsche Telekom.

A White Paper titled "Residential Reference Architecture" will be published soon. The Home Gateway Initiative requested a liaison with REG. In addition, liaisons with the UPnP Forum and the Broadband Forum are considered.

The release of the REG companion specifications has been rescheduled to April 2010 since the interest in the work of the expert group increased and more requirements are coming in as well as other standard committees are about to release relevant specifications which may need to be taken into account for the REG's work.

The next meetings are planed for April and July 2009 where the work on the specifications will be continued, and new requirements will be gathered and discussed.

_______________________

OSGi Technology in the News

The following are notable discussions of OSGi technology in the news. For a complete listing, please visit: www.osgi.org/News/HomePage.

Top 10 Application Development Stories of 2008
JavaWorld, Dec. 16, 2008

Year in Review: What to expect in Java SE 7

JavaWorld, Podcast
InfoQ, Dec. 3, 2008

Jigsaw - the death knell of JSR277?
SD Times, Oct. 23, 2008

Rod Johnson on a mission to open up JCP
SD Times, Oct. 15, 2008

From the Editors: Microsoft made the right call with VSTS

_______________________

Blogs

Making the OSGi Sausage (Nitrate Free).
Eric Newcomer blogs about the latest OSGi meeting (and its dinners). A good overview of some of the work going on in the OSGi EGs. Read more...