NetBeans Adds Features, Helps Eclipse with GUI

Sun Microsystems continues to push capabilities for its Open Source NetBeans IDE, expanding web services support, and adding support C, C++ and Mac devs. Far from feeling crunched by Eclipse’s continuing progress, NetBeans execs claim Eclipse’ success is just making NetBeans better. In fact, Sun is working with an Eclipse member to optimize Project Matisse for Eclipse.

OET runs through the highlights of the news, and gets comments and perspective from Dan Roberts, , Sun’s director of developer tools marketing.

    • NetBeans Gains C/C++ Source Code Plug-in Support — Sun released a preview version of the NetBeans C/C++ Development Pack, which allows devs to edit, compile, and build C and C++ applications on multiple operating systems, including Solaris, Linux, and Windows. The preview Pack includes a variety of features to support the C and C++ developer, including editor syntax highlighting, easier code browsing via hyperlinks between invocation and declaration, a makefile wizard, and templates for building C/C++ libraries and applications. The Pack also extends the Netbeans project system to support C and C++ projects and support for multiple project configurations. This plug-in is supported in NetBeans 5.0 and preview versions of NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 across common platforms, including Solaris10, Linux, and Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.OET: What about broadening NetBeans to the C and C++ worlds, what is that about?

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Despite Storms, ODF Push Steady as She Goes

Despite recent storms over the resignation of Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn, prospects are bright that state MIS execs in 2007 will adopt the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a way to “open up” Microsoft Office documents. So says Sun Microsystems’ standards manager Doug Johnson.

Johnson told OET the ODF effort remains “steady as she goes,” despite Quinn’s resignation, who was one of ODF’s most high-level and high-visibility supporters. “I am feeling optimistic,” Johnson told OET. “For the first time in a long-time, Massachusetts is not on fire anymore.”

Johnson admits that Quinn’s resignation initially raise storm clouds throughout the pro-ODF community. “Everyone we look at as our natural allies might look at this [resignation] and say, ‘This is kind of nasty. Peter explicitly said he left because of the huge political controversy that surrounded this ODF decision,” Johnson told OET

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EnterpriseDB, JasperSoft Ships DBA Dashboard to PostgreSQL

EnterpriseDB, a commercial distributor of Open Source PostgreSQL database for enterprise use, has developed a DBA dashboard in partnership with the commercial Open Source reporting firm JasperSoft.

The idea behind the dashboard is to provide DBA critical database performance and configuration information for any EnterpriseDB or PostgreSQL environment, Astor said. The JasperReports DBA Dashboard for EnterpriseDB, will enable EnterpriseDB admins to monitor database performance, and to identify configuration issues across an unlimited number of servers.

EnterpriseDB CEO Andy Astor told Open Enterprise Trends that his company’s work with JasperSoft underscores an important factor in enterprise acceptance of Open Source: visibility and manageability of Open Source software needs to be easier.

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Survey Finds ‘XML Devs’ Flocking to XQuery

More than half of all XML developers are working with XQuery, and another sizeable group expects to start before the end of the year.

That’s according to a DataDirect Technologies survey just released of some 550 “XML developers,” (which DataDirect defines as including a wide range of XML and database professionals). Specifically, the survey found 52% of XML developers have already started working with XQuery in the last 12 months and another 33% have plans to start using XQuery before years’ end.

“That one number was of the most dramatic findings for me – that XQuery is already happening, and in a much bigger way that I would have expected,” Larry Kim, DataDirect’s XML Programs Manager told Open Enterprise Trends. The survey interviewed some 550 developers and other IT professionals across a number of different industries. “The survey data confirmed what we’ve known all along – that there’s a tremendous interest for an alternative to the tedious, low-level methods presently employed for querying, manipulating and transforming XML data,” Kim added.

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What Execs Want from Open Source in 2005

Recently, the analyst firm IDC announced they are forecasting the market for servers running Linux will exceed $9 Billion by 2008. If you think about it, that’s really an amazing statement.

It means that in the next few years, big hardware companies like Sun, IBM and Dell are going to sell literally billions of dollars of servers specifically for Linux. A billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, and suddenly we’re talking about serious money. But, Linux is just part of the story. There are literally thousands of others Open Source applications, and their growth is also accelerating — dramatically.

So what new issues or surprises are waiting for us in 2005 with respect to Open Source? Here are a few predictions:

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2005 Will See XML’s Powerful Next Wave

The stars are aligning for 2005 to be the “breakout year” for XML’s next wave technologies, including XQuery, according to ISVs and toolsmakers watching the XML space.

Perhaps most bullish among the outlooks comes from DataDirect Technologies, who say that are getting growing interest from architects and devs to learn more about how XML can speed integration for data and documents, and even set up complex, multi-database queries on-the-fly.

“This is the year XQuery is going to happen,” Jerry King, general manager for DataDirect’s XML products told Open Enterprise Trends. “Developers are architects are asking us two questions,” King added:

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Use Case: An Open Source Alternative to HP OpenView

A growing number of Open Source sysadmins and developers are working on web services projects, and are finding themselves mixing their Open Source and commercial software to deliver innovative solutions.

Massimiliano Panchi, a system administrator at an Italian financial software company, needed a way to monitor and log uptime history for a number of Oracle applications in a high availability configuration. Using PostgreSQL as his backend, Panchi built a Perl-based system that would check the status of his applications, populate the PostgreSQL database with these results, and send alert messages if something required human attention.

Now, this innovative solution left Panchi looking for ways to solve his management of his new blended commercial/Open Source software.

After his company evaluated proprietary (and expensive) solutions such as HP OpenView, Panchi wanted to look elsewhere, noting that commercial packages were too expensive and way over-engineered for his needs. OpenView “had a few too many great features that didn’t really address [my] specific problems. It was a bit too wonderful,” Panchi told Open Enterprise Trends, noting OpenView’s sophisticated GUI as an example.

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BEA Eyes Open Source Implementation of BPEL for Java

Controversy may be giving way to simple heads-down hard work when it comes to BPEL4WS, the proposed orchestration standard for web services supported by both Java and .NET vendors. The leading J2EE app sever vendors BEA and IBM have jointly proposed extensions to BPEL (Business Processing Execution Language) to make it more easily implementable within Java/J2EE environments.

Further, a BEA executive close to their BPEL work told Open Enterprise Trends that BEA intends to provide a reference implementation of BPELJ to the Java/J2EE community, and may even provide this royalty-free and as open source.

“BEA will write and provide a reference implementation of BPELJ. Depending on demand and the evolution of the specification, we will also consider making this implementation open source and royalty-free. We’re very serious about it. We want this to be very portable across the Java platform,” said Stephen Hood, BEA product manager for WebLogic Integration.

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Australian Firm Calls on Perl for Telco Projects

Add telco services to the growing list of legacy systems that Perl can connect to, thanks in part to a software firm based in the farthest corner of the South Pacific.

Australia’s SkunkWorks focused on Perl and Linux to build its affordable appdev toolkit and engine for building and deploying telecom services.

SkunkWorks’ Whirlwind toolkit, which comes with the Telco Perl appdev engine, enables developers to use traditional Perl scripting skills to deliver a variety of enterprise-caliber telco services, including: voicemail play/record, fax, conference, text to speech, speech recognition, and even complex voice protocol conversions. The Perl-based system also supports all major providers of SS7 and VoIP solutions. Whirlwind also includes S.100 and VoiceXML interfaces. CPAN.org provides many plug-in modules for Perl to connect to third party and legacy systems. Examples of these modules are SMPP for SMS, DBI for database and LWP for web connectivity.

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New Money, New Code Keep PHP Marching in March

PHP is on the march in March.

In a sign that the marketplace sees lots of promise in PHP’s growth prospects, Zend has completed a new venture capital infusion of $6 million. The latest investment, from venture capital fund Index Ventures, together with previous investors Walden Israel and SFK Technologies, brings to $12 million the total of VC investments in Zend in less than six months, since November 2003. Isreali-based news service Globes Online reports that Zend may actually get $2-3 million more in funding before the round closes.

And as if to justify investors’ faith, the long-anticipated PHP5 First Release Candidate is finally for download from Zend. To get a closer look at PHP5, OET spoke with Zend’s co-founder and Zend Engine co-creator Zeev Suraski.

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Driving Enterprise Python – Patches, Plug-ins, Outlines

A number of enterprise devs had pushed Python’s state-of-the-art in the last few weeks. Notably, Python has a new patch for a particularly sneaky security vulnerability, better support for new logging modules and even an upgraded documentation tool and programmers’ editor.

In this Python wrap, OET provides devs a quick tour, links for code downloads, FAQs and forums.

Security — A buffer overflow in python 2.2’s getaddrinfo() function was discovered earlier this week by Sebastian Schmidt. If python 2.2 is built without IPv6 support, an attacker could configure their name server to let a hostname resolve to a special IPv6 address, which could contain a memory address where shellcode is placed. This problem does not affect python versions prior to 2.2 or versions 2.2.2+, and it also doesn’t exist if IPv6 support is enabled. . Python with the patch is available here. For more background on the problem, go to theMandrakeSoft Security Advisory

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Tips To Using PHP Templates: Inside Smarty

Templating has been gaining in popularity for years among web developers, especially those working on portals or business sites that may have their web pages tied in with complex business rules. Now those same benefits from templating are coming to PHP. This article, originally appearing at DotGeek.org, looks at Smarty, one of the leading PHP templating engines available.

Benefits of PHP Templating
Web design and programming are closely related and yet are very different. Designers speak in such languages as HTML and CSS, and programmers are often heard speaking in the tongues of PHP and SQL. Design focuses primarily on presentation logic, and programming focuses primarily upon business logic. Separating these processes in web development cycles helps to achieve rapid application development goals while providing for website maintainability.

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IBM, Novell Differ Over Linux Indemnity for Users

Even among those companies that favor Open Source Linux use, there are differences over just how much those companies need to do to protect their enterprise users from liability.

During last month’s LinuxWorld, it became clear that not all major Linux providers are on the same page when it comes to indemnifying customers against any fallout from SCO’s $3 billion still-pending Linux copyright infringement lawsuit.

Notably, IBM and Novell execs last months outlined their views on indemnifying customers against any fallout from SCO’s Linux lawsuit. IBM remains steadfast that the suit has no merit and looks to original Linux providers, including Red Hat, SuSE Linux AG, and others. Meanwhile, Novell execs say that despite what Linux vendors’ opinion of the lawsuit are, they need to assure prospective customers.

For his part, Novell CEO Jack Messman told attendees that Novell would protect customers under a limited indemnity program. Novell will offer indemnification for copyright infringement claims made by third parties against registered Novell customers who obtain SUSE Enterprise Linux 8 after January 13, 2004, upgrade protection and a qualifying technical support contract from Novell or a Novell channel partner. Details of Novell’s program are available.

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Gosling: Unified Java Tool APIs May Take a Year

James Gosling, the renowned creator of Java, now has a new job at Sun: CTO of the Sun Developer Platform. In that role, he gave his first formal briefing to reporters, noting that the push by the Java Tools Committee to create a unified set of APIs for Java tools vendors could take a year or more.

When asked if Java IDEs might align their APIs by next January (2005), Gosling said, “I doubt we’ll have all the work done by next year at this time, but we should have a good road map for what needs to be done…A lot will depend on the consensus. Some of that will be technical and some of that will be political.” Gosling expects some heady issues will affect the timetable, and the outcome, of the push for a common API set for Java IDEs, including UI integration, metadata support and workflow issues — all currently under discussion at the Java Community Process.

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Linus Fields Dev Questions On the Future of Linux

Last month, Geekcruises’ Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska proved that Linux and Open Source are hot enough topics to even warm up Northern waters. The feature of the trip was a candid Q&A; with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Courtesy of GeekCruises Capt. Neil Bauman and Senior Editor of Linux Journal Doc Searles, OET brings our readers an extended transcript of Linus’ shipboard Q&A;, where he responds to Linux dev questions on the future of Linux, including the status of Linux 2.6, impacts from increasing corporate (and vendor) adoption, an ever-growing kernel, and even on the pending lawsuit from SCO.

Geekcruises Capt. Neil Bauman gets the ball rolling in our extended transcript.

Capt. Neil Bauman: In the last year or so, Linux has been embraced by a large number of established companies. You consider this a good thing, a bad thing? Are you happy? Sad?

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