According to sources, the new open-source ESB project, known as Petals, targets highly distributed integration environments with an implementation of JBI, also known as Java Specification Request (JSR) 208.
The ObjectWeb Consortium is a France-based open-source software community aiming at developing component-based middleware for large-scale distributed systems. The consortium is headquartered in Grenoble, France.
Sources said Petals will complement the ObjectWeb Celtix project, an open-source ESB effort started by IONA Technologies that is hosted under the ObjectWeb umbrella of projects. ObjectWeb plans to announce Petals next week, sources said.
Celtix is a Java ESB based on Web services standards that will provide the foundation for building out SOAs (service-oriented architectures). Meanwhile, Petals is the result of the merger of two proposals that had been submitted to ObjectWeb to implement a JBI container, François Letellier, a member of the ObjectWeb executive committee, said in his blog.
The Petals effort is co-led by EBM WebSourcing of Ramonville St. Agne, France, and the Fossil EC project, which is an effort to provide an open-source platform for organizations to integrate their B2B (business-to-business) operations through the Internet. "Petals targets implementation of a distributed JBI container, along with B2B-oriented binding components," Letellier said in his blog.
Meanwhile, although Letellier would not address specific questions regarding Petals, he did comment on recent reports that JBoss Inc. CEO Marc Fleury said he would like to see JBoss work with ObjectWeb. Fleurys JBoss open-source application server has been viewed as a competitor to the ObjectWeb Jonas open-source application server, but JBoss said it does not see it that way.
"You have to understand—we dont really consider Jonas competition," a JBoss spokeswoman said. "JBoss almost never comes up against them in a sales call."
In addition, "We already work with some current ObjectWeb projects, e.g., sync4j," the JBoss spokeswoman said. "Not sure if theres anything formal in play. Theres been some outreach on JBoss part, but Im not sure how ObjectWeb has responded."
In a blog entry, Letellier said, "As ObjectWeb is quickly becoming the natural home-ground for open source middleware players, this would be a pretty natural move (and a significant recognition for ObjectWeb)."
In an interview with eWEEK on the issue, Letellier said: "In business terms, Id say that they [JBoss] have their business model—so far so good. If they want to find their place in ObjectWeb, they may have to accommodate other business models too. Doing so would be of everybodys benefit, the users to begin with."
Moreover, "ObjectWeb is an open, nonprofit consortium. Any company, organization, individual willing to abide by the consortium agreement is welcome," Letellier said. "The goal of ObjectWeb is to promote synergies between members and reuse of open-source components. Companies that think business partnerships and shared R&D have a place there."
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