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The ECM addresses two significant, independent trends. The first is the emergence of component-based, service-oriented technology as the foundation for a new generation of adaptive, evolvable enterprise application infrastructure platforms. The second is the cultural evolution of open source software development from a predominantly 'gift-based' model to one that incorporates 'shared financial rewards' for open source community members.
A new generation of software technology is rapidly emerging that delivers dynamically adaptive, evolvable and extraordinarily resilient platforms for service-based computing. Based on the advanced OSGi component model and service-based application and infrastructure architectures, this type of platform permits dynamic assembly of services into both simple and complex business applications and systems. Rather than the conventional development of large, monolithic business applications deployed on rigid, brittle 'middleware' stacks, these new composite applications are composed of 'best-of-breed' business logic and infrastructure components that can be quickly and dynamically evolved to adapt to changing business conditions and underlying computing technology substrates.
OSGi has been in existence since 1999, however since late 2005 there has been a growing interest in the use of this component model within the enterprise software world. This interest has grown rapidly and the degree and adoption and conformity of vendor marketing messages is testament to this. Indeed all of the leading application server vendors including IBM, BEA, Oracle and Red Hat and open source projects including Object Web's Jonas and Apache's Geronimo have announced, and many have already started, to decompose their traditional monolithic application servers in to framework solutions with plug-able OSGi components. Furthermore, SpringSource (formerly Interface21), the company behind the Spring Framework now supports OSGi and this makes the development of OSGi applications simpler, and developers more productive, by building on the ease-of-use and power of the Spring Framework.
In parallel over the past decade, open source software has become a dominant pattern for software development. A mature model, open source software has proven that reliable, sophisticated enterprise-class software can be developed and supported using community-based development methodologies. Information technology organizations have already adopted open source software for a wide range of business systems and are rapidly accepting open source software as a viable alternative to the proprietary, closed 'legacy' model for all business-critical applications.
This shift to open source software by enterprises and organizations of all sizes has validated the model and, as a side effect, created significant wealth for a handful of fortunate open source community leaders. The latter has created tension in the community since much of the success of individual projects can be frequently attributed to 'gifts' of time and intellectual capital by community members. Aside from the occasional t-shirt, the often extraordinary rewards have been limited to a few participants, adding impetus to the challenge of how financial rewards may be more equitably distributed in the open source software community.
This increasing adoption of the advanced OSGi component model, along with the shift in open source attitudes, provides the foundation for an economic model that allows open source software developers (individuals and companies) to participate more equitably in the financial rewards offered by increasing enterprise reliance on open source developed technology. |
