MOM and SOA on Linux?

dogmeant asks: "I have yet to see MOM (message oriented middleware) offerings on Linux much less open source projects that address the same. And while we're at it, what about tools that address SOA/BPM (Service oriented architecture/business process modeling) type architectures on Linux? Is the Open Source community ready to take on challenges like this?" If anyone else out there has this particular itch, maybe this will be another niche in which Open Source software can catch some Enterprise mindshare.

Comments

Ah, middleware

[JohnFluxx]

Middleware is an interesting area. The trouble is, is that it doesn't offer enough for someone to bother coding it.

It works well for companies because:
1) They can afford to put time and investment into 'the latest fad', whereas in the OS community the time is better spent elsewhere. (The point isn't phrased very well sorry - read on)

2) It is good for companies to produce middleware because they can offer a high level of intergration between their products - hence locking you into their whole range. E.g. Lotus domino - news server,web server, database all in one. In the OS community you would chose the best database applicable, the best web server applicable, and quickly write some scripts to communicate between them.

3) Middleware solves problems that people don't know they have - so don't notice that itch to solve them. However in business, companies produce such software, then tell other companies they have the problem, and solve it. (I'm not very good at getting point across today - sorry.) For example: IBM do a message passing program that basically consolidates errors between servers. Say a hub breaks down, and suddenly a load of machines report they can't access the machines behind the hub. What you want is for the computers to talk to a central node, and the central node to reduce all the errors down to a "x,y,z machines can't be reached, they are all behind router r, hence I suspect r is down." Then when the machine come back, delete the errors.

Re:Ah, middleware

[jsse]

Middleware solves problems that people don't know they have

Very true. Some are solving the problem in very complicated way, like Staffware, we used it in writing workflow application for JSP. It's supposed to make life easier, but turn out the total effort to collaborate and manintain this damn Staffware server is multiple times more than it takes to write a workflow mechanism on our own from the ground up.

What's worse is that most middleware introduce a vulnerable layer in a supposingly robust system. The above-mentioned system has a AIX+Oracle backend and it's supposed to be very reliable, but most of the time the system cease to function when that Windows server which host Staffware goes down. I swear to God I do not make this up.

When they sell you middleware and say "slip this in and you can save the money doing this layer yourself!". They lied, they just want your cash.

May be that's the major reason why opensource community seldom target on middleware, as most of them are useless.

It goes deeper than that.

[FreeLinux]

This is a common situation in open source and I don't see it changing anytime soon. The fact is that apps such as middleware are business apps. They aren't terribly sexy or cool. They are however, important to business and are usually specific to a particular business.

On the other hand, it seems that most open source developers are motivated to scratch their own itch. They are drawn to apps that are cool and apps that meet their needs. This is perfectly understandable but, it does result in a derth of open source business apps that are either mundane or just plain boaring. For this reason, open source offers an emormous assortment of "toy" apps. There are countless cd burners/rippers, MP3/Ogg players/encoders, Linux utilities and so forth. There are also a ridiculous amount of frameworks and libraries, usually all repeating the same theme. If I see another "yet another framework" project I'm going to be sick.

There are only a few business type open source projects and even fewer ones that could be considered mature enough and good enough to run your business on them. If a business wants a particular app they must build it themselves. This of course costs money and in some cases it costs a huge amount of money. And there in lies the problem. Most businesses that have spent large amounts of money on development are not interested or willing to give it away by making their project open source. For these two reasons there are very few business type open source apps like middleware and it will be a long time before there are, if ever.