Sun 'Calls JBoss bluff' on J2EE compliance

joshmccormack writes "According to c|net's news.com Sun has finally responded to JBoss Group's request for J2EE compliance testing. Simon Phipps, Sun's chief technology evangelist stated in the article he thinks JBoss Group is bluffing, that their code won't pass the tests, and that some of the code is just copied from Sun."

Comments

Go get em JBoss!

[ChaoticChaos]

I'm surprised that Sun put any kind of a negative spin at all on this. An Open Source J2EE compliant Container would be a Cruise Missile right into the Microsoft camp. It's un-friggin ridiculous how damn much IBM, et all, wants for a J2EE compliant server. Honestly, it's outrageous for small companies and your partners you want to deploy to. Honestly, I'm surprised IBM charges as much as they do with all the payroll savings they now have from sending jobs over to India. Where are the savings going? ;-)

Re:Go get em JBoss!

[hawkestein]

Dude, welcome to the wonderful world of economics. They're only going to charge less if it means that they'll sell more units and make more money overall.

Compliant or not?

[The Bungi]

For example, a company that writes a billing application using J2EE software and tools should be able to run that program on any J2EE-compliant software without extensive manual coding.

...

But the company asserts that its software is compatible with J2EE because applications written for commercial Java applications servers can be reworked to run on JBoss in a matter of hours or days.

So... what is compliance in this case? It seems to me that if the application has to be reworked and the J2EE standard says otherwise, then there's no issue - JBoss is not compliant? Is that what the J2EE certification actually dictates?

Re:Compliant or not?

[lewp]

There's virtually no non-trivial J2EE application you can just take from one J2EE server to another. Even if both of the servers are officially compliant, say Websphere to Weblogic, there's still enough things left up to the container vendor in the J2EE spec that you're going to need to make modifications for everything to work properly.

Anyone who tells you that you can just deploy a J2EE app on any J2EE server is either lying to you, has never used J2EE, or is deploying apps where someone already put in the necessary time ensuring it works on a bunch of different servers.

The current main idea is to isolate the needed modifications to the application deployment descriptors as much as possible, rather than having to change the actual code.

I'm fairly comfortable editing Java code, and don't have any plans to begin making money off of Java code, so it doesn't do much for me. But in a large enterprise where the developers are far removed from the administrators or for a company trying to make money selling closed-source Java, I suppose this element of J2EE could be a big win.

Additionally, J2EE is fairly young in a lot of ways, and continually evolving. The more widely-implemented vendor-specific features will almost certainly gain official support in later versions of the spec, so as time goes on the situation should continue to get better and porting between servers should only get easier.

It'll pass, no problem

[FortKnox]

Those of us that have used the "big 2" webapps (weblogic + websphere) and jboss can tell you that jboss will pass J2EE compliance without any issue.

JBoss isn't necessarily as efficient or as fast as the "big 2", but its always first in adapting new versions of J2EE and JSP. JBoss is always on top of new java technology, and doesn't have the vendor specific code that the "big 2", unfortunately, have.
JBoss is really gaining serious popularity in the Java world. Its really a nice product and is true to the "non-vendor specific code" that other app servers claim to have, but don't.

Re:It'll pass, no problem

[lewp]

I can't see a problem with having helpful vendor specific features if you're clear about the fact that they are vendor specific.

Scenario 1: You want the ability to easily move between servers. You avoid using the vendor specific features of the various servers. Everything works out fine.

Scenario 2: You don't care about moving between servers. You use handy vendor specific feature A and are able to get up and running faster as a result. Again, everything works out fine.

In 99% of cases I'd go for scenario 1, but I certainly wouldn't be pissed to have scenario 2 available to me, just in case.

Good news!

[Joe the Lesser]

Regardless of the outcome of the tests, the only way to make progress is to let things happen. Even if they can't pass the tests, they'll come out of it more experienced and have feedback.

Perhaps Sun finally felt some heat from the tech community? (pun intended)

Sounds like a setup to me

[bmongar]

From the article

However, Phipps said he doubts that JBoss software will pass the compliance test. Basing his opinion on public information, he said, JBoss software does not appear to implement all of the J2EE specification.

Sun should already know if JBoss can pass the test since sun already had the test suite and JBoss is freely avaliable. My guess is they were pouring over the spec next to JBoss with a fine toothed comb to find things that weren't implemented and add the to the suite before it is released.

Re:Sounds like a setup to me

[Tailhook]

Sun should already know if JBoss can pass the test since sun already had the test suite and JBoss is freely avaliable

Sun probably does know. If you were Phipps, would it be better to simply proclaim that JBoss is not compliant and create an Open Source "martyr" or merely suggest it isn't and let the JBoss Group prove you wrong?

Personally I doubt it is actually compliant. The test suite is very thorough and pokes around in obscure areas of the various specs, some of which are ambiguous. The big vendors spend a lot of time massaging their products to comply with the spec with the benefit of the licensed test suit at their disposal. JBoss hasn't had this luxury. They'll need to go through this process before all the light turn green. Don't be surprised if it takes the JBoss Group a year to get there.

I don't blame Sun for withholding certification from JBoss. They have managed to get powerful vendors to sign on to the J2EE platform based on the promise that there is a payoff in terms of licenses. Now that these big vendors have established a credible market for the platform, Sun can let JBoss play and provide a low cost point of entry. Had a "free", certified compliant implementation existed early the big vendors may have thought better of it. Sun now wants JBoss compliant because it makes the platform stronger to have a solid low-cost implementation.

JBoss is not threat to the big J2EE vendors. Implementing a single server side class in J2EE requires writing at least three separate bits of Java code for the home, remote and bean interfaces/classes. There may also be local variants of these to overcome marshalling overhead. XML metadata must also be maintained. This is for a single EJB. If you have many EJBs, you have a very large number of source files and bits of metadata that must be kept in sync. The big commercial vendors sell tools that make this easy. You can do it with vi, but you don't want to. If JBoss is really compliant and really as good as its hype, the vendors will just incorporate it into their own products, just like they did Apache. Their "value add" still remains, because JBoss does little or nothing to relieve the sheer development burden of distributed J2EE development (aside from good dynamic deployment.)

J2EE is now technically credible and supported by real vendors with real products. Now Sun wants to make it cost effective by allowing JBoss to compete after getting its certification ducks in a row. Wise move.

Re:Cruise Missle into Microsoft??

[ChaoticChaos]

Uhhh, have you heard of .Net? It's popular with many shops because of the lower cost of entrance. The cost of a J2EE Container is a big obstacle for many shops.

Sun/Phipps needs to show more class

[Kefaa]

"I predict that now that we're calling their bluff, they will make up another excuse for not doing the tests," Phipps said.

A comment like this from Sun is unnecessary and appears childish. This kind of remark is unprofessional and serves no purpose except to build animosity.

What will he say if it does pass? If it does not pass, did his comment serve any purpose except to give JBOSS a reason to believe the test was biased?

Re:Sun/Phipps needs to show more class

[sprytel]

Sure it does... remember, its all about perception.

When JBoss doesn't pass (as has been pointed out before... its Sun's test and a free product... so they must already know the outcome), then Sun can say:

"See JBoss is an interesting little diversion, but if you want a REAL J2EE-COMPLIANT APP SERVER, then you need to buy a commercial product."

Undoubtedly, JBoss will fix the areas where they are not compliant. But by the time they do, a new J2EE spec will probably be out, and they won't be able to pass again. Keep in mind that all the major app server vendors define the specs via JCP... so JBoss is necessarily going to always be playing catch up.

Its a pretty smart move by Sun. It keeps them from looking like the bad guy, or "anti-open source", but at the same time serves to marginalize JBoss as a competitor to "legitimate" commercial app servers.

Copied Code?!?

[bokumo]

If Sun thinks the JBoss group copied code, then why don't they prosecute them under copyright law?

Re:Copied Code?!?

[rossjudson]

If they think the JBoss guys copied code, why don't they just point out the file and line numbers. It's open source, isn't it?

Still useful

[mysterious_mark]

Even if it isn't 100% J2EE compliant, it still works as bean container, and is in general easier to use and way less expensive than the commercial alternatives, there are some of us who like to use java based web platforms, but don't have six figures to spend on it. And if it isn't J2EE compliant, this isn't such a big issue if the points of non-compliance are openly known. Viva the OSS MM

How does that help Sun?

[sterno]

Sun makes money by charging for the testing and certification and licensing of the J2EE standard to the likes of IBM and BEA. If I can download a free product, that's licensing fees that don't go to Sun. Sure, I'm not buying Microsoft's products, but it's not like Sun would be benefiting either.

Evangelist? More irony?

[cdthompso1]

Isn't it ironic that this guy Phipps' job title is given as "chief technology evangelist" yet he snidely quips that he doubts JBoss, a product that has done much to advance J2EE in the small to mid-size business arena, will even pass the tests?

Re:Cruise Missle into Microsoft??

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, his point is that .NET is cheap while J2EE is expensive, and that Sun therefore benefits from the arrival of JBoss.

Bringing up Mono supports his point.

Tempest in a Teapot

[JohnnyCannuk]

Read this and try forming opinions other than "Sun sucks" or "Go JBoss, you rock".

I love JBoss. I use it daily. I even contributed some patches to it back in the 2.4.4 days. I like
Sun stuff. I use it daily. The company I work for is a Sun iForce Partner (we're also and MS partner, in case you think I'm realy biased). I look at this issue, and read the above article (which I was pointed to on the JBoss forums, ironically) and I see two sets of people acting incredibly childish. I won't say the two companies or organizations, because I know there are people on both sides of this issue that don't share these opinions. So Sun won't certify JBoss? Big woop. I'll still use it. So will most of the developers I work with. And we'll still use it for dev and then port to BEA or OC4J because it's easy to do (Websphere bites and is incredibly hard to port to...yet certified!). If JBoss "goes beyoind J2EE" and doesn't support the standard anymore (J2EE 1.4 in the future, it complies to 1.3 as far as I can see), I will stop using it.

Period. End of story. I'll use OC4J...not open source but free for development and certified. It's also easy to use.

I don't give a rat's ass about AOP, or even JMX or micro-kernel crap. I care about writing EJB's (Session not entity...we've discovered Apache OJB),JSP's and servlets to the J2EE standard that are easily moved from one app server to another. I care about using the latest features of the spec. As soon as I can't do that, I'll stop using that server. If JBoss goes to far beyond J2EE they will lose. If they don't like the current spec, maybe they should get involved with the JCP to affect some change, like Apache.

As for Sun folks thumbing their nose at JBoss, perhaps they should remember that without JBoss, there would be hundreds of thousands less J2EE developers out there and likely .Not would be much more prevelant. They should also thank JBoss for technical innovations like drag and drop deploy of .ear's and hot deploy (is anyone at IBM reading this?), which has been picked up BEA and Oracle to varying degrees because of the competition.

Given that, and the exchange in the above article, maybe I'll switch to Jonas or OpenEJB (or another Open Source server if it exists).

This whole thing is ridiculous. Stop whining and start working to beat out .Net

Re:Open Source Question

[Wavicle]

So now please answer why JBoss needs to be compliant other than allowing legacy to run?

Because if JBoss is not compliant, nobody will use it. The fact that it is open source is a really poor argument for not needing standards compliance. Should GCC's cc be non-ANSI C since if you needed it to be ANSI C you could just open up the source and make it conform? The Apache HTTPD server is compliant to the HTTP spec. Tomcat is a reference implementation of a servlet container.

There's an ocean of difference between being able to access the source code and being able to effect changes to that source code. Open source should conform to standards.