During the last week we had a “great disturbance in the force”. Oracle detailed its agenda for Sun products and promised to “maintain” the Open-ESB community and Glassfish ESB.

As explained in our last blog, we had a bad feeling for our community and were not very optimistic. In order to understand what "maintain" means exactly, we had a look on the Oxford dictionary where the word “Maintain” is explained as follow:

1. cause or enable (a condition or state of affairs) to continue.

1. keep (a building, machine, etc.) in good condition by checking or repairing it regularly.

2. provide with necessities for life or existence

Everyone could understand the message that Oracle will provide a level of resource or budget enough to continue and keep Open/Glassfish ESB in good context. Of course, we did not expect from Oracle millions dollars of investment for what they named : a non strategic product.

Alas, we did not to wait more than one week to spy out Oracle's intents. This week, we got news about Open/Glassfish ESB teams from very reliable US and EU sources involved in the project. We think that it is our duty to inform the community and communicate the news even it is obvious that Oracle or Oracle groupies will refute them.

The sources informed us that development team working on Open-ESB had been dissolved. One of our source told us: “the development team has been massacred just sustaining remains”. Another one said: "new developments are dead, Don't reckon on new enhancements. Version 2.3 or even Fuji will never be issued. Just few people remains to provide a very light support". In fact, Last Monday 1st February for the first time, the Forum Nabble : http://n2.nabble.com/OpenESB-Users-f794670.html did not receive any answer, and since the last week, wiki's activity decreases dramatically !!! Other contacts described the same situation and now, we have no more doubt about what happen this week.

First, let take time to think of all the girls and guys that worked on Open ESB project and that will never see the outcome of their hard work. Dozens of names cross our minds and Pymma wants to thank them for what they did. (Please let us know if you come in London and have a beer together)

If you are lucky enough to develop with J-caps or to subscribe to a Glassfish ESB support don't worry about this new context. With a contract you will get a support and will be able to work for many years.

For the other cases, what can be the response of the community ?

First responses emerge from the chaos. Former SUN's employees propose professional support (http://forgerock.com/) on open-source product likes Open-SSO, Open-IDM. Open ESB in included in their portfolio but without control on Netbeans and Glassfish evolution, it appears difficult to propose an alternative support.

We learn that the project Wonderland has been cancel as well. Most probably, one of the next target will be MySQL development teams. Fortunately, forks will be easier to create and maintain than for Open-ESB project.

We hope that other solutions will emerge from this new context. Of course, Pymma is ready to participate to any credible proposition. Let's take advantage of the forums to encourage and promote a light and powerful integration system.

To conclude this sad post, once again, we would like to thanks Sun guys and girls that gave us faith in Open and Standard solutions.

Pymma