Information keeps coming and we recently learned that OpenSSO will contain a subset of modules integrated into our Access Manager, mainly :

• Authentication
• Single domain web SSO
• J2EE Agent for our Application Server and Web Agent for our Web Server

JavaONE is just over the corner and the announces continue flowing in … After our Application Server (project Glassfish), after OpenSolaris, it is now the turn of our Access Manager to become an open-source project : named openSSO.

I am particularly excited about this, Access Manager is a great product and at the heart of many secure Portal I have been involved with. This is a great technology for Authentication, Single Sign-On and Liberty-enable your existing (and future) web applications.

The news quitely went through yesterday : US Governement will keep its control over ICANN. In other words, the US gov.can decide anytime to shutdown all .com, .net and .org domain names. I let you meditate on this ….

JavaONE 2005 is over – what a great edition it was ! Java is 10 years old now and the celebrations were great. This year’s focus was clearly on Service Oriented Architecture and Desktop Development ( SwingX, AJAX , Creator 2 ea, Netbeans, Matisse, …).

Don’t forget to check an additional set of pictures just posted.

We have a great year ahead ! Take care &  Have fun

Just found an excellent review of Netbeans 4.1.
Worth a reading.

[Updated 30 June] OK, I have to admit we can find very pessimistic views over Netbeans as well. Needless to say, I disagree with David’s conclusion :-). But he is right on one point : Eclipse has more market share and more market recognition. IMHO, this is due to the fact that we did not improve Netbeans as fast as the market was expecting during the last 4 years, leaving the room open for new comers. These days are gone. Netbeans is back on track, with a solid foundation, many great features, great performance and excellent usability. We know we are behind but we now have all the qualities to significantly progress. Try Netbeans today !

We got the official announcement this morning during the General Session : all presentations will be freely available (slides and video) by the end of August.

Well, Sun is saying there is 4.5m Java developers.
We were 15,000 attending JavaONE this year.

This is a chance for the other 4,985,000 developers to grap the exceptional content of the 200+ technical sessions adn 160+ BOFs delivered this year.

Content will be available on the Sun Developer Connection (free registration is required)

Geronimo, the open-source implementation of Java EE proposed by the Apache group, has passed this week a significant subset of the TCK suite. Its is not certified yet, but this is a good sign that the work is in progress.

Objectives of Geronimo is to become the fourth certified Java EE open-source implementation, following the way traced by Glassfish, JBoss and Jonas.

This is an excellent news for the Java EE community. Like in all other sector, competion is good, it ensures best functionalities for lower prices.

Oh, by the way, did I mention Sun’s Application Server is free and is now open-sourced as well ?

It is now a tradition, the last day of JavaONE, James Gosling is presenting some cool stuffs that you are doing with the Java platform and Java programming language.

We had once again a quick presentation of Matisse, the next generation GUI builder based on the work of the Netbeans team, the SwingLab team and the open-source community. This is aligned with one of our top goal : simplify the life of developers.

The demo was based on Joplin, the open-source, iTunes-like, music player. Check it out today !

We also had a great demonstration of the Java Mobility Pack, a plug-in extension of Netbeans allowing to develop Java ME applications. The cool stuff is that we can now debug applications on the device itself, putting breakpoints, stepping into the code and watching variable, not on the emulator, no, on the device itself !

Did you ever dream to have breakpoints in your pocket ?

Finally, Boeing demonstrated their Scan Eagle unmanned vehicle (airplane without pilot). This is a small airplane primarly designed for military purpose. This stuff is drived by a Java program, running an on board implementation of Java Real-Time System. It receives instruction from the on board GPS system and ground-based flight control. Communication with the ground is made through real-time CORBA communication.

Real-time is the key here, the pilot can not pause 1 sec for garbage collection.

You can read James’ own blog on the subject

I attended last night to a talk named “The 7 secrets of succesful book authors”. A very good presentation that gave not only highlights for book authors but also a general mood and direction for the IT book market.

Things that surpized me :

• IT book market is shrinking : -13% last year
• Programming books is #1 in this market
• Java books market is shrinking even more : -32 % last year
• Average revenue per Java book = $67k
• Average Java book sells less than 2000 copies

Probably not a good timeframe to start authoring 🙁

DTrace engineers are running an entertaining and fun contest at their JavaONE booth.
Bring your real app, they will DTrace it and they guarantee they can improve the performance of the application. Should they not succeed at the task, you win an iPod.
Let’s give it a try. You have nothing to loose.