This is probably the biggest change since Java 1.0 went live 11 years ago. The Java platform (Java ME, Java SE and Java EE) are open-sourced under the terms of the license (with classpath’s exception)

Don’t miss the webcast announcement tonight at 18:30 Paris/Brussels time.

Icing on the cake : Duke is open-sourced as well, you can now be creative and create your own derived work 🙂

I am not the first one blogging about this today, and won’t be the last one either.

Netbeans 5.5 is ready for download.

We also ship today, the first public preview of Visual Web Pack. To make a long story short, Visual Web Pack is a set of Netbeans plugins that provide Java Studio Creator features right into Netbeans.

One of the main criticisms we had while presenting Netbeans and Creator to customers was the lack of integration between the two tools and the need, for some developers, to install the two on their local machine. Now, with the preview release of Visual Web Pack, one IDE is enough to develop stand alone Java applications, enterprise class applications and web applications.

Netbeans is the only Java IDE to provide, out of the box,

• a GUI builder,
• an Ant-based project system
• a profiler
• a graphical web application development environment
• an XML editor
• a BPEL editor
• an UML editor
• a C/C++ development environment
• and many more !

All of this is free to download. Enjoy !

For those of you who did not attend the JavaONE 2006 conference this year, you are now able to download the slides for most presentations. Audio replay will also be available soon while keynotes webcasts are already available.

Did I mention this is free of charge ?

Javapolis 2005, the bigest Java event in Europe is just around the corner. Take a look at the speaker list, it’s impressive.

I hope many european folks will be able to join us in Antwerp. They will find me on Sun’s booth.

I will be happy to share your latest Java experiences and show our latest tools.

Ho, by the way, did you already know we are giving away all our java development tools ?

Do you want to test a full Java ES system, connected on the Net with a static IP address ?
Do you want to stress test your server ?
Do you want a public Java ES for your customer demos ?

http://www.jesdemo.com will be happy to rent you a fully connected Java ES System.

Interesting to see how business is evolving and how thrid-parties are offering inovative way to provide access to our system.

Now available from any web browser : the inside story of history.
This web site features some video interviews of Java key players : James Gosling, Amy Fowler, John Gage, Bill Joy and co.
You will discover all the big and small details about how Java was created.

Netbeans team is continously working during these hot summer days to bring more stuffs intro the IDE.
The last two noticeable additions are the JBoss plugin and the new CVS access module.

The features of the JBoss plugin include (quoted from an internal email) :

• Ability to register a local installation of JBoss 4.0.x
• Starting and stopping the server, basic management features
• Deployment of J2EE Applications, EJB Modules and Web Modules
• Debugging applications in JBoss
• Minimal handling of JBoss-specific deployment descriptors

The plugin is available from the download center (In Netbeans, choose the “Tools” menu, then “Update Center”)

Also available from the Update Center (in the “Development” section) is the new CVS support. This lightweight CVS access module focus mainly on usability and includes :

• Full project integration
• Versioning view (shows all changes in selected context, local changes in real time)
• Refactoring integration
• Visual indication of changes using colors
• Tight editor integration (for example, revision annotations visible directly in the editor)

While I am writing about Netbeans, I also would like to mention that the August 2005 issue of Dr Dobbs Journal includes a technical comparison of Eclipse 3.1 and Netbeans 4.1. This article is available online for paying subscribers, the rest of us will need to grab a copy at the local corner’s bookshop.

Like we announced it during JavaONE, the slides are now available for the whole Java community, free of charge.

Like I said in a previous entry, I started yesterday to build glassfish on some machines I have at my disposal :

• An Apple Powerbook G4, 1.25 Ghz, 512 Mb RAM with Mac OS 10.4.2
• An Intel based laptop, 1.8 Ghz and 2 Gb RAM with Solaris 10
• An Apple PowerMac G5, 2x 2.7 Ghz, 2.5 Gb RAM with Mac OS 10.4.2

The time difference to fetch the sources and building them is amazing.  Without surprise, the PowerMac G5  left all the others behind.

Here is a summary :

I easily managed to build Glassfish on my Powerbook G4 !

This was really a piece of cake, I just followed the build instructions… and a couple of minutes later I had my own App Server 9 up and running, ready to discover Java Enterprise Edition 5.

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 71 minutes 28 seconds
Finished at: Mon Jul 18 16:14:39 CEST 2005

That’s just the compilation, the source checkout took some time too… 🙂

Most modules are shipped as Netbeans project, making it easy to modify them and recompile within Netbeans. Very detailed instructions are available on Netbeans web site

When you build Glassfish on Mac OS X, be sure of the following :

• Install Apple’s provided Java 5 (available only for Tiger)
• Install Maven 1.0.2 (version 1.1 beta does not work, sigh 🙁 )
• use “Darwin” as a value for glassfish.os.name in project.properties

I will continue to test drive some Java EE 5 features… and will post any relevant info to this blog.

Enjoy !