Getting 2.0.1 out the door was a great step and now might be a good
time to start discussing where we want geronimo to head next. Here
are some ideas I've had or think are important. If I were to try to
write actual sentences about all of this I'd probably never send the
email so this is way too fragmentary but maybe can spark more
discussion. I'm hoping everyone will chime in with their interests
and viewpoints, this is just what I've been thinking about lately.
Modularity.
For a long time we've been on the brink of having an actually modular
server, not just a conceptually modular server. As reflected in a lot
of recent discussion on the dev list, I think we are so close we
should really work hard to make this a pleasant reality. Some of the
steps I see:
- enhance the plugin framework so bits of more config files can be
added, in particular artifact_aliases.properties and
config_substitutions.properties. IIUC Paul has some schema changes
and xml handling rewrites in the wings as well
- finish up the pluggable admin console work and actually split the
admin console into appropriate bits for the plugins
- rearrange the build so it is organized by plugin
- actually assemble the servers we ship using plugins, perhaps using
gshell scripts
- have more server-building tools. For instance, a "button" to push
that spits out a server with just what is needed for a set of apps
and nothing else.
Clustering
IIUC we have a lot of partial clustering solutions. For instance
there's WADI, native tomcat clustering, a terracotta integration, and
IIUC Jeff has been working on a clustering solution (my apologies if
I left any out). I'd like to know where these efforts are in terms
of actual functionality and reliability and what they can be extended
to do. We also need some kind of cluster admin tools.
Security
jaspi
triplesec
administration
beyond javaee security for jetspeed and roller
There are some good things about javaee security such as the idea of
using Permissions and evaluating them in a policy but there are also
a lot of limitations and problems such as no support for restricting
access to user generated content that didn't exist when the security
was originally configured. At least roller and jetspeed have run
into this problem. I think triplesec may provide a fairly generic
solution and it might be interesting to see if other projects are
interested in this.
Other apps
roller
jetspeed
proximity etc
It would be great to get "all popular apps" available as geronimo
plugins.
Management and troubleshooting
ARM
"trace on error" facility. Have a list of info that each component
can add to as the request moves through the system. If there's an
error, we can show the entire path taken with all data. Otherwise we
discared it.
server farm management (gshell?)
Transaction manager
implement a "do work in a new tx" interface, hook it up to openjpa.
IIUC IBM has proposed an interface that lets server pieces submit
work to be done in a new transaction, thus eliminating the need to
deal with suspend etc yourself. There's been some discussion on the
openjpa lists, and we should definitely do this. There may be more
commonj work to do also, but I've more or less lost track of that
project.
make sure recovery actually works
Core
Better Spring application management
Investigate OSGI and figure out how it is different from what we are
doing, what it can do better, and what is missing from it. Figure
out an integration strategy whether it be "run OSGI as an
application" or "replace the kernel with OSGI" Don't break stuff if
we start using OSGI more :-)
Figure out what to do with our "config.ser" in modules/
configurations. At least get it into real xml, maybe using something
like jaxb with schema/gbean.
Personally I'm interested in most of these projects but only have a
finite amount of time. Right now I'm concentrating on triplesec and
want to work on jetspeed integration after that.
thanks
david jencks
