Hello,
I'm here to propose a new project for the Apache incubator, related to
a previous post I write here.
You can find the first draft of the proposal here [
http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/JSpiritProposal ].
We are looking for Champion, Mentors and interrested developpers. And
we gracefully ask to the Incubator for sponsoring this project.
We were happy to receive your feedback about this proposal.
Thanks for your support, we are happy to begin a new work with you !
Best Regards,
Here the text of the proposal :
= Abstract =
jSpirit will be a platform to develop efficiently enterprise class
applications for SaaS with real Multi-tenant support and cloud
deployement.
= Proposal =
jSpirit will provide technical foundation on which application
developper will create enterprise software distributed as services.
jSpirit vill implement global and out-of-box architecture supporting
multi-tenancy. As multi-tenancy, I mean architecture that share the
same application for multiple client, with support of specifics
comportements. The technical foundation will include an integration
framework designed for simplify and abstract technical complexity of
J2EE for the final developper, a set of tools to industrialize
production of applications, a complete applications stack, and a set
of methods and recommandation to develop efficiently.
= Background =
jSpirit was initialy developped for a french company who wants to
create a multi-tenant SaaS ERP for trading in the agribusiness world.
The application is now finnished and this company opens the codes of
the foundation of this project. At this time, there is no foundation
framework whose provide multi-tenancy support so it was a need to
develop something like jSpirit. The experience of developping such
application point there is a need to have tools and method to do this.
= Rationale =
I think there is a strong need of architecture and simplicity in the
java world. The multi-tenancy problems are difficult to resolve and
the needs of such application will grow in the future. jSpirit will
implements out-of-box architecure, a seamless programming model and
technical module to simplify developpement. jSpirit goals is to become
a concentrate of experience of open-source and advanced J2EE
developpers to provide a platform for efficiently develop application
in the SaaS and Multi-tenant world.
= Initial Goals =
First goal is to develop users and developer community around the
project to ensure quality and usability of the platform. Our
open-source experience is not high so we think it's important to
relies on a community to make the project live.
Second goal is to document the project to be more usable as is.
Third goal is to enlarge functionnality and make the project more
coherent with apache ecosystem.
= Current Status =
== Code Base ==
All the code base is here :
[[http://sourceforge.net/projects/jspirit/|Sourceforge]].
The current code base implements all functionnalities below.
=== Architecture ===
* Multi-tiered Architecture out-of-the-box : Implementation of
Integration Layer, Business Layer, Client Layer
* Java 5 annotation and auto-injection based lookup of services
* Classpath scanning for auto-discovering components
* Modular and plugable architecture : automatic activation of modules
in the classpath, ready for seamless integration
* Implementation of Long-Conversation pattern, with JTA 2PC support
(with Geronimo Transaction Manager), and implicit demarcation
(explicit demarcation is always possible)
* [in progress] AOP interceptor on top of each layer
=== Integration Layer ===
* Implementation of abstract integration services and abstract
persister based on JPA technology
* Maven plugins for code generation of integration layer from xml
description of component business model : generate persistent class,
access services, queries, constraints, JPA annotation, lucene
indexation of business model
* bean validation integration
* Full Multi-tenancy integration on EntityManager and Caches
* Multi-tenant Postgresql support
=== Business Layer ===
* Implementation of abstract business services and infrastructure
* Annotation discovering and injection of dependents services
* Multi-tenant replacement of services at runtime
* Simple Asynchronous and distributed business services with Apache
ActiveMQ : this is annotation driven
=== Client Layer ===
* JSF 2.0 predefined integration
* Abstract Managed Bean for simple developpement of list and forms
* Integration of restful url for JSF 2
* Multi-tenant interceptor for determining tenant context based on
full qualified domain name
=== Scheduling ===
* Distributed and load adaptative voting peer-to-peer scheduler
* voting task execution with Condorcet Method
=== Security ===
* Simple security integration : form login, http basic security
* Multi-tenant support for authentications and authorizations
* peer-to-peer sessions id replications for support max session per
user in a cluster
* Regexp filters on urls
* JSF function and bean to manage security on pages
=== i18n ===
* Full i18n support
* Multi-tenacy i18n : overriding label per tenant
* JSF function for accessing labels and locale
* JSF bean for controlling user locale on web page
=== Data Import/Export ===
* XML data importer/exporter customizable by tenant with scripting
services
* ready for "open-SaaS" to guarantee application users data
integration and recuperation
=== Web Services ===
* Simple export of business services to Soap Web Services with Apache
CXF
* [in progress] REstfull web services with Apache Abdera integration
(and XStream)
* Atom 1.0 support with Apache Abdera (only GET method now)
=== Search ===
* Indexation of data model
* Simple Query interface for searching in the data model
* Multi-tenant support of the Lucene Indexes
=== JCR ===
* Multi-tenant integration of Apache JackRabbit : workspaces based
* Implementation of injectable service for JackRabbit access
* JTA transaction participation
=== Mail ===
* Injectable mail services out-of-box
=== Reporting ===
* Report module on top of the business layer
* based on Castor XML and Apache FOP
* Pluggable Reporting Provider architecture
* Multi-tenant report replacement at runtime
=== Tools ===
* Set of Maven archetype mapped on architecture to create one project
by layer
=== Planned Functionnality ===
* Maven Plugin for code generation supporting Apache Cassandra
without interface modification
* Create others multi-tenant interceptor based on other methods
* Support more algorithms for scheduling for the distributed scheduler
* Security : Services Access Authorization
* Eclipse plugins for MDA enablement, XML schema recognition, and more
* Integration of Business Rules Engine with multi-tenancy
* Integration of BPM/Workflow Engine with multi-tenancy
* Simple Cloud deployement
== Meritocracy ==
We think meritocacy is the best method to conduct project. It give
involvement to procude quality products. The responsability of
individuals in project should grow proportionnaly to their
implication. So their responsabilty must represent their involvement
and the quality of the work produced. In other words, we think we can
improve a project quality with motivated persons who wants contribute
to set the future path of the project. We think developping
open-source software is an adventure and we need adventurer !!
== Community ==
As said above, building community is the first initial goal for the
project. The actual community is actually composed of two developpers
and a software company in France who uses jSpirit as a foundation for
his product. We will encourage suggestions, contributions, and other
feedback because we think we need stay near the users and developper
community to satisfy their attents. That's why we need a free license.
We wants promote exchange betweens persons to improve the ideas and
the quality of the software.
== Core Developers ==
There is two developpers at the moment :
Grégoire Rolland, J2EE Architect from 7 years, founder of the jSPirit
project.
Franck Hervy, Java developper from 8 years, contributor.
We are conviced by the need of participate to free sofware, but our
experience is minimal (but we want learn !)
== Alignment ==
We think apache foundation is a good match for jSpirit. jSpirit is
targeted tu use Tomcat and Geronimo in the future. jSpirit uses
already a lot of Apache projects and we think we need collaboration
with this project to produce the best platform we can. This project
are ActiveMQ, Abdera, CXF, Velocity, Maven, Commons, Geronimo,
JackRabbit, Lucene, FOP, ...And there are other project we will need
to work with (Cassandra, OpenEJB, OpenJPA). We think there could be
good interaction between projects and jSpirit could fit in the ecosystem.
= Known Risks =
== Orphaned products ==
There is a risk the product became orphaned due to the small numbers
of commiters, that's why wee need to build a community. Grégoire
Rolland wants to build his carrer aroud this project and Frank Hervy
is very interrested. The company wich already use jSpirit could
diminish the risk of orphaned product.
== Inexperience with Open Source ==
The initial committers have low experience with open source projects.
All have been involved with source code that has been released under
an open source license, but there is no experience developing code
with an open source development process. But we are very motivated to
execute our developpement under the meritocraty rules. As said above
we are really open to this new experience, that's why we propose this
project for incubation.
== Homogenous Developers ==
All developpers works in different company, we are in France, sure,
the geographical region is limited. But we already have join
proposition from other countries. We think this project could
interrest a large panel of developper and we want encourage this.
== Reliance on Salaried Developers ==
Franck Hervy is vonluteer for developping jSpirit. Grégoire Rolland is
currently unemployed but want to make is business around this project
and support this in a long term. The project will continue without
salaried developper.
== Relationships with Other Apache Products ==
Reltionship with other Apache Products exists today as dependent
library as said above, and we want encourage these and work together
to improve the quality of each. Dependencies include ActiveMQ, Abdera,
CXF, Velocity, Maven, Commons, Geronimo, JackRabbit, Lucene, FOP. We
want develop the relationships with Cassandra, OpenEJB, OpenJPA and
Geronimo, to build a high quality platform for developping enterprises
applications.
== A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand ==
We hope the Apache Brand will attract users and contributors around
this project. We know ASF since 10 years and we are used products
daily. We think the products are all quality and open-source
respective. We recognize the effort of the ASF in the open-source
ecosystem and we want to add our sweat to this effort. However we can
continue this adventure alone but this will be harder and less
motivating than belong to a large and recognized community.
= Documentation =
There is not much documentation now (it's the second initial goals),
but you can found some material here (sorry it's in french) :
*
https://sourceforge.net/projects/jspirit/files/doc/saas_rmll.pdf/download
*
https://sourceforge.net/projects/jspirit/files/doc/jspirit_presentation.pdf/download
= Initial Source =
jSpirit is in developpement since September 2008 by Grégoire Rolland.
The developpement started in a french company (Husson Ingenierie,
Périgueux, http://husson-info.fr/) when the developpers needs a
platform for building multi-tenant application. The source was
liberated in Arpil 2010.
= External Dependencies =
The dependencies all have Apache compatible licenses. These include
LGPL, BSD, CDDL, CPL, MPL and MIT licensed dependencies.
= Cryptography =
jSpirit could depend now or in the future from cryptographic code.
= Required Resources =
== Mailing lists ==
* jspirit-private (with moderated subscriptions)
* jspirit-dev
* jspirit-commits
* jspirit-user
== Subversion Directory ==
* https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/jspirit
== Issue Tracking ==
JIRA jSpirit (JSPIRIT)
== Initial Committers ==
* Grégoire Rolland (grolland dot jspirit at gmail dot com)
* Franck Hervy (hervy dot franck at free dot fr)
== Interrested developpers ==
Here a list of the interrested developper :
= Sponsors =
== Champion ==
We are actually looking for a Champion.
== Nominated Mentors ==
We also need Mentors.
== Sponsoring Entity ==
We gracefully ask the Incubator to be our sponsor.
