Blogging Roller

thanksgiving-2007
Originally uploaded by snoopdave

Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys.

• Sound Opinions from Chicago Public Radio and American Public Media
  Best podcast ever


• The Aquarium: GlassFish Interim Governance Board - Now Complete
  "The complete roster is Tony, Greg Luck (Wotif.com) and Pierre Delisle (Google), and Simon and myself (Sun)"
• Bistro!: GlassFish/SJS AS in production - which bundle, which profile, ...?
  Explains differences between developer, cluster and enterprise profiles
• GlassFish Podcast: The GlassFish Podcast
  Finally, a Glassfish podcast! Props to Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine
• Apple - Downloads - UNIX & Open Source - GlassFish
  Download Glassfish V2 directly from Apple
• Red Hat and Sun Collaborate to Advance Open Source Java Technology
  "Red Hat has signed Sun's broad contributor agreement that covers participation in all Sun-led open source projects."


• Megginson: First looks at OpenSocial: part 1 (URLs)
  Lists the URIs for the AtomPub collections available in OpenSocial
• Megginson: First looks at OpenSocial: part 2 (members and friends)
  How OpenSocial members and friends are represented in Atom format
• Megginson: First looks at OpenSocial: part 3 (activities)
  How OpenSocial activities are represented in Atom format and manipulated via AtomPub protocol
• Megginson: First looks at OpenSocial: part 4 (persistence data)
  How OpenSocial persistence is implemented via AtomPub protocol
• Google: OpenSocial Container Sample
  Shows "basic demonstration-level OpenSocial container can be implemented"
• Dare Obasanjo: OpenSocial Tech. Overview and Critique
  "Despite these misgivings, I think this is a step in the right direction. Web widget and social graph APIs need to be standardized across the Web."


• snellspace.com: Notes, Part 2
  "lots and lots of things that can be modeled as collections of web resources"
• netzooid: Building Services with AtomPub
  "While APP is not the one true protocol, I think I?m hooked"

Another batch of social software related links today, but today it's all about Google's new OpenSocial APIs (link to go live tomorrow). I waded through 20 or so posts today and the links below are my favorites. Gotta say, I'm really looking forward to getting the details tomorrow, understanding how Roller can play and seeing how AtomPub fits into the picture -- and I'm assuming it does since GData has been mentioned (see the Brady Forrest link below). After reading Marc Andreessen's post, which is the first link below, I think it's possible that Roller could act as both a Container and as a provider of Apps for other Containers. I wonder, could OpenSocial provide the UI widget API that Roller needs? And, will Roller's rather limited user profile data be enough to allow Roller to act as a Container? If so, I might be doing some late night hacking this weekend.

• Marc Andreessen: Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web
  "An open web API that can be supported by two kinds of developers: Containers -- social networking systems and... Apps -- applications that want to be embedded within containers"
• Brady Forrest: Google Announces the OpenSocial API
  "The open API will have three parts People, Storage [and] Activity stream. All of these calls will have a GData counterparts"
• Fred Stutzman: On OpenSocial
  "It's unfortunate that Google, rather than a standards body, is at the center, but perhaps this will outline a standard way forward"
• Danny Ayers: Google's OpenSocial coming tomorrow
  "Will this stuff be truly open, usable as linked data (with appropriate authentication) or will it still be hogtied within those partners' environments?"
• Valley Wag: What OpenSocial will look like on LinkedIn
  "Here are screen shots detailing how one such partner, LinkedIn, plans to incorporate apps"

Some reading on Facebook and enterprise social software from my del.icio.us bookmarks collection:

• Tim Bray: The Intimate Internet
  Bray on Facebook: "Twitter hits that 80/20 point, bringing me that news without all the Facebook bullshit and lame groups and dorky apps and stupid ads and data lock-in. "
  
• Fred Stutzman: The Directionality of Social Network Platforms
  Stutzman on Facebook: "the ecosystem needs more than fluff, especially if we're going to start talking about the "social operating system."
• Phil Windley: What's wrong with Facebook
  Windley on Facebook: "social Webs will require similar attention to the structure that emerges from social activity, not nagging people about it";
• Doc Searls: Too much face(book) time
  Searls on Facebook: "If you're waiting for me to respond to a poke or an invitation, or a burp or any of that other stuff, don't hold your breath."
• Read/Write Web: Big Vendors Scrap for Enterprise 2.0 Supremacy
  "The [products] remain complex and broad in scope - which in many respects goes against the grain of simple and easy-to-use web 2.0 products."
• Personal InfoCloud: The State of Enterprise Social Software
  "Nearly all of the enterprise software product companies are claiming understanding of Web 2.0, but none execute well on it"

A replica of the largest of the three ships that brought English settlers to Jamestown in 1607.

I haven't been bookmarking things in del.icio.us quite as often as I used to, for a variety of reasons, but I still do about 2-3 links per day. So I setup my FeedPoster to post my latest links to my blog each day as a draft post, which I can edit and post later if I want. So here are my edited links from the past week with some added commentary to make them a little more interesting (hat tip to Rafe Colburn).

Atom protocol "features" extension

I try to follow the Atom community pretty closely, but sometimes I fall out of the loop. For example, I missed the discussion on James "Mr. Atom" Snell's important new extension proposal for Atom protocol features, which will enable blog servers to declare what features they support. For example, Roller could inform blog clients that you can enable/disable comments for each post, limit comments to N days on, "pin" a blog entry to to site's main page (if you are an admin) and more. Hopefully, we can get blog server developers to agree on a common set of features and blog client developers to support that set.

Publishing critical info with Atom

And I had to bookmark James Snell's excellent and important article Publish critical public warnings on the Web, with the sub-title "Atom publishing can provide a powerful and flexible way to distribute critical, life-saving information."

Sun Portal's blog porlet, powered by Atom protocol

This next Atom link comes from docs.sun.com. It's some documentation for the Sun Portal Server 7.1 - Blog Portlet. I did not realize that the Sun Portal blog portlet uses Atom protocol to enable publishing to Roller. It was developed and tested against Roller 3.1, so it probably does not conform to the final Atom protocol.

What to call Atom protocol?

And finally, folks are wondering what to call Atom Publishing Protocol. Is it APP or Atompub or Atom protocol? Ian Bicking says I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to call it Atompub from now on." I don't have a strong opinion, but I do think APP is to vague to be useful.

Lightweight image editors for Mac

I've got a copy of Photoshop Elements for the Mac, but I really hate to have to start it up when I want to crop or resize an image. So I twittered about it. Ryan Irelan pointed out ImageWell "the Free and Lean Image Editor". Rich Sharples recommended Skitch, a Web 2.0-ish desktop app that makes it easy to snap, draw and share images from your desktop. I'm on the waiting list for an invite. On my own, I found Seashore, which is a Gimp based open source image editor Mac, one that does not need X11, and it's pretty light-weight. I'm not ashamed to admit, I love the Gimp.

Whew! I've got a couple more links but my lunch break is over so there you go.

• Dare Obasanjo: A Proposal for Social Network Interop. via OpenID
  "This is where OpenID Attribute Exchange can be put to use" and "Why This Will Never Happen"
• The Open Road: Free versus paid support in open source
  Matt Asay: "you're better off paying a little money for professional support"
• The Unix Guardian--Q and A: Sun's Top Operating System Brass Talk OS Strategy
  "mass customization of operating systems is going to be possible for those operating systems that are open source and repository driven"
• Miles to go: First JRuby on Rails App in GlassFish V3
  "the exact steps to deploy your first JRuby application in GlassFish V3"
• SourceKibitzer - Interview w/Lars Trieloff of Mindquarry
  e.g. "Who are the main competitors of Mindquarry and why are you different?"
• Jonathan Schwartz: The Internet vs. Stone Tablets
  "I'd love it if we one day eliminated the term "blogging" from the web lexicon"
• Sam Ruby: WordPress, AtomPub, and PHP5
  Sam says he'll help Wordpress implement APP, but only for PHP5
• Atomojo: complete Atom Publishing Protocol stack
  APP server based on Restlet API and APP client for Firefox
• snellspace.com: URI Template Update
  Looking pretty dang useful, w/Java implementation too
• Progress on Redhat's IcedTea OpenJDK project
  "I hit a major milestone today as Swing & Java2D work!"
• The limitations of JSON
  Interetsing JSON vs. XML vs. RDF post with plenty of comments
• MPX: The Multi-Pointer X Server w/multi-touch
  "Now I've gone one step further and added support for multi-touch displays"
• Google Pack Adds StarOffice
  "The software normally costs $70, but it's available for free in Google Pack"

• Upgrading Jamaica's Cultural Shareware: Trojan Records at 40
  "There's never really been any stigma associated with sharing or using the works of others [...] If anything, to most it's regarded as a compliment."
• The GPL and Software as a Service
  Closing the SaaS loophole "would have been a death blow for GPLv3, making it impossible to adopt"
• Since when the the 'P' in POJO come to stand for "Pretend"
  Interesting article, but in my opinion POJO is a loose colloquial term
• Diary of a CrazyFrench: CUPS sell out
  "I'd recommend starting to mirror everything just in case Apple pull the plugs"
• Pete Rowley: Free IPA
  "an effort to shore up the existing identity infrastructure such as kerberos, LDAP, Samba and RADIUS"
• Tom Daly: Sun pushes price/perf boundaries w/SPECjAppServer2004
  "The price/performance of this result using open source is compelling"
• Scott Oaks: Glassfish V2 posts new SPECjAppServer 2004
  "We used to be content with having a good result in terms of price/performance... Now, we're the raw performance leader."
• Asus Eee PC First Thoughts
  $250 laptop with Linux, OpenOffice, 16GB flash HDD and 10 second startup

This week in Roller Strong, I've got some status on the 4.0 and 3.1 code bases and note about Roller Weblogger vs. Roller Planet.

Development continues on the Roller 4.0 code base, but we're essentially feature complete and focusing on minor improvements and bug fixes. Allen worked to clear bugs and improve bootstrapping. I worked to update Roller's Atom protocol (APP) implementation to use the final APP namespace URI and to pass Tim Bray's latest Ape tests. I wrote up my <a href= "http://rollerweblogger.org/roller/entry/atom_protocol_exerciser_ape_setup">experience with Ape here on my blog.

At Sun, we've been testing the new Roller 4.0 "EZ install" work and doing some additional work to make 4.0 even easier to install in Glassfish. Manveen Kaur created a Glassfish Update Center Module for Roller that automatically downloads and installs Roller with almost no user-interaction. She wrote up instructions to help others <a href= "http://weblogs.java.net/blog/manveen/archive/2007/06/creating_a_glas_1.html">create and <a href= "http://weblogs.java.net/blog/manveen/archive/2007/06/testing_your_up_1.html">test Glassfish Update Center Modules.

We're also preparing some 3.1 fixes. All of the <a href= "http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/roller-dev/200706.mbox/%3c8fb9ac720706302051n59e525d0ua850e48ba5b2a62a@mail.gmail.com%3e">issues reported against Roller 3.1 have been fixed and we're just about ready to make a fix release, which we'll call 3.1.1.

And finally, a note about the project. Since 3.0, we've reorganized the Roller code base to reflect the fact that Roller is not just a blog server. Roller is a project that produces both a blog server called Roller Weblogger and a planet server called Roller Planet. For example, the Roller interface is gone and replaced with Weblogger for the blog server and Planet.

Using the word "Weblogger" reminds me of an unfortunate incident that occurred back in 2002. Not all of my Roller memories are pleasant ;-)

Roller Strong Disclaimer: this is a personal blog and I do not speak on behalf of Sun Microsystems or the Apache Software Foundation.

• Moonwatcher: Mindquarry Focuses on Small Teams
  "The system allows management of teams, files, tasks, and wikis through an elegant AJAX interface"
• DaveDev: Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
  "Blogs.. Wikis... Social networking... Community Kit For SharePoint, enter stage left!"
• mnot’s Web log: The State of Proxy Caching
  "we tested a selection of Open Source and commercial proxy caches"
• Michal Szklanowski: first class Groovy support in Intellij Idea
  Looks like the install process is a little rough now, but it's got the features
• Jive Clearspace
  "Brings together discussions, blogs, files, instant messaging and wiki documents under one unified umbrella"
• Ross Mayfield: Lurching Legacy into 2.0
  "Lotus Connections, a social software suite I would even recommend. If you have 130k employees"
• Identity Management Buzz: Web 2.0 Meets Directory
  "Brandon, Don & Sun Open DS Community Manager, Trey Drake discuss OpenDS, web 2.0 applications and other uses of a directory"
• REST, Atom, APP, Web3S, and An Open Invitation To Prove MSFT Wrong
  M. David Peterson on Web3S: "There is some *killer* stuff in here!"

A bunch of Atom and REST related links that I came across while catching up with my blog reading today:

Atom and LDAP sitting in a tree. Trey Drake has released his OpenDS based Atom store as an open source project on Java.net at http://atom.dev.java.net. It's a directory server distributed as a Java web application that supports both Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Signing, encrypting and decrypting Atom. On IBM developerWorks, Nicolas Chase explains how "digital signatures and encryption can easily mesh with Atom data using the Apache Abdera API."

Google GData: A Uniform Web API for All Google Services. Dare Obasanjo praises Google for creating a single uniform and RESTful web services API for eight of its key services, the APP based GData API. He writes "not only is it now possible to create a single library that knows how to talk to all of Google's existing and future Web services since they all use GData. It is also a lot easier to provide 'tooling' for these services than it would be for Yahoo's family of Web services given that they use a simple and uniform interface."

RESTful web services support in Netbeans. Geertjan links to blog entries and a screen-cast that explain Netbeans 6.0 support for RESTful web services, including the early access JSR-311 REST API.

Generate code from your WADL REST API. Eduardo at The Aquarium links to Thomas Steiner who is making progress on a WADL editor and a generator, bringing WSDL-like code generation to RESTful web services.

• jcp.org: Apache named as JCP member of the year
  "ASF has impacted the direction of the JCP program by consistently driving collaborative transparency"
• Ethisphere™ Magazine: 2007 World's Most Ethical Companies
  Sun Microsystems named as one of the world's most ethical companies

Today we took the train from Amsterdam to Leiden and the bus to Keukenhof. I took about 50 photos of the tulips and other flowers there. Here's one of my favorites.

• ZDNet: GPL 3 isn't the 'last call'
  "here are some key changes in the latest GPL draft and how they're designed to target the Microsoft-Novell partnership"
• Allison Randal: GPLv3, Third Draft
  "I'm beginning to lose confidence in the FSF as the primary defender of free software principles"
• Simon Phipps, SunMink: GPLv3 Third Draft
  "All very interesting, I know there will be a lot of discussion about this inside Sun over the next few weeks."

• Slashdot | Linux Preinstalled Dell Available Soon
  in the comments: "So I'm wondering if this is an actual effort to offer Linux boxes or another PR stunt?"
• Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux
  "There is no reason we can't make Solaris look and feel more like Linux"

• InfoWorld: Dell division will design Web 2.0 datacenters
  "Dell hopes to sell the service to only the largest Web-based companies, the top dozen or two dozen hyper-scale datacenters of the business world"
• Sun HPC Watercooler: Rackable Clones Black Box
  "a 40-foot by 8-foot mobile data center with the capacity to hold up to 1,200 of company's rack-mount 1U (1.75-inch) servers"

• fnokd! JBoss.ORG: Blogging & RSS
  "I think personal blogging, even on corporate topics, tends to be more real and honest."
• fnokd! JBoss.ORG: Plans
  Plans include Blogging, RSS and aggregation
• BCOM 522: Corporate Blogs: Sun Corporate Blogs Case Study
  "blogs also give Sun engineers an outlet for showcasing and getting credit for the work they're doing"
• Discovering Identity: Treo Blogging Attempts
  Mark tried u*Blog, HBlogger, BlogPlanet, and mo:Blog -- "This little exercise has fallen way short of my expectations"

• Breathing Life into a Dead Coyote (Part 1)
  Geerjan works to bring the Coyote project back to life for Netbeans 6.0
• Southeast VC: Calling All Entrepreneurs
  "I still keep hearing from entrepreneurs that VCs are hard to reach"
• Ben Rockwood: Web 2.0 Mashup: Define it and win a prize
  "people like Tim Bray lay the foundations for greatness and people like Michael reap rewards not due to them"

• David Van Couvering: Why use Atom Publishing Protocol for REST?
  "Why not just use HTTP and JSON and have done with it?"
• Max Ross: Ode to Hibernate (and Shards)
  "Shards, a framework that adds support for horizontal partitioning (or in Google parlance, "sharding") to Hibernate Core"
• James Snell: Don't Panic
  "it is possible to get very far with nothing but the base APP protocol."
• Elias Torres: Is AtomPP for or not for blogs?
  "we'll probably have to do some good amount of extra work in defining how blogging clients will interact with a blogging service"
• Rob Yates: Atom Publishing Protocol - not enough for blogs?
  Rob wants a guide that "allows blogging clients to be interoperable with blogging servers"
• Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-atompub-protocol-14.txt
  Roy Fielding: "the sky is not falling, and AtomPP implementations will interoperate just fine"

• Marc Hadley: Google WADL Tools
  "I'm delighted to see others picking up on WADL and hope the project goes well"
• Elias Torres: Sun Web Developer Pack
  I think it's great to see an injection of Web 2.0 magic dust on Java
• Ajaxian: Sun Web Developer Pack
  Do you see that? Since when did Sun create something that lets you develop with PHP :)
• Paul Sandoz: Documentation for RESTful Java API in R1 SWDP
  "Thanks to a quick turnaround from the docs... BUT..."
• Sun Web Developer Pack announced
  SWDP thread on The Server Side complete. Very little insight in the comments.
• Arun Gupta: Introducing Sun Web Developer Pack
  Arun announces the SWDP on his Java.net blog

• Tim Bray: OpenID
  Tim's problems with OpenID. The big one, attribute exchange, will be resolved in OpenID 2.0
• O'Reilly Radar: Pros and Cons of OpenID
  "there are a lot of people who have OpenID, but they don't have many places to use them"
• Phil Windley: OpenID Economics Centers on Relying Parties
  "With attribute exchange, some niche OpenID providers are likely to spin up based on specific attributes or features"
• Multi-gig databases in Java DB? You Betcha
  "You can't do this with 'just a developer database.' "
• Skrocki: Blog Bling is like eye shadow
  Cool! New Roller themes coming "Sun brand-free by default, so the Roller community can leverage them as well"
• How real is the NetBeans Platform book?
  Rough cuts edition coming soon, est. availability Feb 22, 2007
• Erwin Tenhumberg: South Africa moves to open source
  All new software "will be based on open standards and government will itself migrate current software to FOSS"
• Suw Charman: Six Apart spins like a Whirling Dervish
  Post about SixApart with comments from SixApart's Anil Dash and Wordpress' Matt Mullenweg
• Simon Phipps: Sun and FSF
  "Sun has become a Patron of the Free Software Foundation"
• JDIC Browser on the NetBeans Platform
  Screenshots of Firefox embedded in Netbeans and other Swing apps

• InfoWorld: Sun to sell Intel-powered servers again
  "Intel has agreed to really promote Solaris to [help us build] a marketplace and an ecosystem"
• ZDNet Between the Lines: Sun and Intel scratch each other’s backs
  "alliance will work on [Solaris] device drivers, power management, virtualization and other features"
• Announcement: Sun And Intel Announce Broad Strategic Alliance
  Intel endorses Solaris, Sun to ship Xeon based systems in first half of 2007
• InformationWeek: IBM To Pitch 'Ventura' To IT-Enable Social Software Faves
  "Ventura also will include a version of Roller, the open-source blog server"
• heise online: Lotus Connections / IBM Social Software
  German article includes screenshot of "Lotus Ventura"
• CNET News: IBM gives Lotus a dose of Web 2.0
  "tools popular with consumers on the Web, such as shared Web bookmarks and blogs, into its collaboration software"
• Yahoo! News: IBM renews Microsoft rivalry with new Web software
  Connections combines five components: member profiles, activities, blogs, communities and "dogear"
• Europa Build Workshop Report: RSS/Atom build feeds
  "The use of RSS feeds solves a number of issues in cross-project communication"

• rc3.org: Predictions for 2007
  Web applications, spam, web advertising, decentralized communication for weblogs
• Wired News: Legal Predictions for 2007
  "Courts will finally have to deal with the growing use of licenses and terms of service that change default computer access, free speech and copyright rules"
• Enterprise 2.0: Ten Predictions for 2007
  "web applications like blogs and wikis are just the beginning of the Enterprise 2.0 story..."
• Steve Anglin: 2006 Java Technology Winners and Losers
  In the comments: Eclipse is "leaking air and marketshare to increasingly popular NetBeans"
• Southeast VC: Predictions 2007 - 1/2
  "The Year of Apple; Investment Opportunities Emerge Around Search and Filtering Tools"
• Southeast VC: Predictions 2007 - 2/2
  "Tech IPO Market Returns; Web 2.0 Takes on Real Definition and the Internet Emerges as a Replacement for TV"
• Portals and KM: Enterprise 2.0 Predictions for 2007
  "platforms that deliver apps for blogging, wiki creation, and social networking within a single framework"
• Web 2.0 Predictions for 2007 - The RSS Blog
  Randy's list of 2007 predictions and links to some some other interesting lists
• Wired News: Wild Predictions for a Wired 2007
  25 predictions from the Wired News Staff
• 5 Disruptive Technologies To Watch In 2007 - InformationWeek
  "including RFID, advanced graphics, and virtualization"

• Ten Web 2.0 APIs you can really use - LinuxWorld
  #6 Atom API: "it's rapidly displacing proprietary blogging and posting APIs"
• Atomic Firefox add-on
  "An Atom protocol client for creating and manipulating Atom feeds (e.g. blogs)"
• eXist: Open Source Native XML Database
  "eXist is an Open Source native XML database featuring efficient, index-based XQuery processing"
• eXist DB: Atom Publishing Protocol Support
  Intro to APP and it's use in the eXist native XML database
• Atom API for AOL Journals
  "Journals exposes a very complete API for creating and managing blogs, entries, and comments. "