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HP's E-Speak Source Released to Public

Posted by Roblimo on from the thank-you-so-much dept.

TheFitz writes "Hewlet-Packards new flagship internet product E-Speak has been released open source. The story can be found here on Yahoo or you can get information at E-Speak's homepage. Apparently this is similiar to a Java system in that it's a transparent application API over the HTTP protocol." No weaselly license, either; GPL and LGPL all the way. Cheers for HP!

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. OpenSource Craze by Joshuah · · Score: 3

    Benefits of E-Speak

    1. E-speak complements device-to-device communication, such as HP's Chai, Sun's Jini and Microsoft®'s UpnP.
    2. E-speak leverages key collaborative technology-standardization efforts, such as RosettaNet, ontology.net and Microsoft's BizTalk.
    3. E-speak utilizes open technology standards on the Internet, including XML, LDAP, HTTP, WAP, SSL, SLP and SNMP.

    Whenever a company puts a product such as this, and opensources it, it means its a good thing. Novell is looking at opensourcing their flagship product, the NDS (Novell Directory Services) I believe that opensourcing products allows designers and programmers to work together on a product that they like/need for the enhancement of that product. Big cheers for HP!

  2. HP looking to pay people to use e-speak by helarno · · Score: 3
    Check out Sourcexchange where HP has had a few open proposals to get people to write stuff with e-speak technology in it. The amounts they are willing to pay are decent for someone hacking in his free time. So if anyone wants to take the time to really try out their stuff and get paid in the process, that's a good place to start.

    It is nice to see HP putting their time, money and marketing muscle behind something open source. Hopefully, theirs will be a positive experience for all, rather than scaring a lot of developers/companies away.

  3. I think we'll see more of this in the future... by xtal · · Score: 3

    The companies that are actively supporting open source all have one thing in common - they are primarily getting there revenue from hardware, or software consulting - not sales of software. We all know that software isn't really a product, but a service - and I think the economy is waking up to that fact.

    Open source helps companies like HP because they get wide distribution of their software - not because they get free developers! Wide distribution of software means it's easier to find bugs. Finding bugs makes better software. The developers are a bonus, but people shouldn't feel exploited.

    I did some work for Intel, and they have a LOT of software engineers - why? To find ways to make programs that use their processors. The code isn't important, it's that they sell more hardware.

    Open source goes one futher, because when the source code is out there, the program will never become obsolete - hint, engineers a dirt cheap compared to the revenues places like HP and IBM bring in. The only obstacle is not having the code. Remember the PC DemoScene? If all those groups released the code for their effects, then we'd still see evolution of their demos - but none/few of them did. (See the hornet archive before it goes away!)

    Companies like Sun haven't completely figured this out yet, I don't think. IBM and HP sure have. We'll see more from them in the future - they are very "with it". If all goes will with my courses this term I'll be accepting an offer with IBM for this very reason - the push for linux and open source in general.

    Kudos!

    --
    ..don't panic
  4. What It Does (Rampant Speculation) by PhineasFrog · · Score: 5

    From a very, very cursory perusal of the site, I get the following impression of what this thing actually is.

    From the look of it, its a way for programs to invoke RPC's from hosts they don't know exist. That is:

    Suppose My coffee maker wants to know the time, and its sitting on a network in my Home Of The Future® It can query the local e-speak server server (e-speak core???) for a service with the appropriate properties (must have TimeZone=>GMT, must have Precision=>microsecond, must have Name=>Time, etc), and then follow it up with a call to the *right* server's services. shazam.

    This could be really cool, not just for coffee (which is pretty neat to start with) but for the ultra-thin cell phone-futurerama devices everyone is so keen on ushering into reality. And cool or not, it could be very popular with the "Now I don't have to worry about the license at all 'cuz I'm not distributing the software at all just the service' crowd.

    There might come a day when open services are the name of the game- when we not only have to see that software has source shipped with distributions, but that Completely Documented Service API's are published (And the only way to do that, really, is expose the source). It would really bite to have to get a Micro$oft coffe maker to get the most out of my Micro$oft Microwave, which I got because it was the only kind that could use the Micro$oft clock-radio correctly... We may be compelled to establish our own network of services on this second chapter of the internet that HP is so cheery about (and hey, I can't say I'm not, it'll be an excuse to buy a pilot...). An open source service negotiation protocol is a great start, but from the look of things, it may be uphill from here.



    --
    Its the Ideology(tm)!