JOnAS Becomes the First Non Commercial Open-Source Application Server to Complete J2EE 1.4 Compatibility Certification.

PARIS -- Collaborative Development of Open-Source Middleware Delivers Industrial-Grade, Standards-Compliant and Production-Proven J2EE(TM) Platform

ObjectWeb, the international consortium dedicated to open-source infrastructure software, today announced the completion of the certification effort to make the open-source application server JOnAS compliant with the Java(tm) 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE 1.4(tm)) specifications. By successfully passing the J2EE 1.4 Compliance Test Suite, JOnAS is becoming the first non commercial open-source application server to be certified compliant with the J2EE specifications.

"Compliance is a critical factor driving enterprise and ISV adoption of J2EE application servers and associated middleware stacks," said James Governor, Principal Analyst at RedMonk. "Certification ensures application portability and prevents lock in; ObjectWeb can now meet these market requirements."

JOnAS is positioned as a low-risk alternative to proprietary J2EE applications servers. JOnAS is 100% standard-compliant, without proprietary extensions and free from any vendor stranglehold.

ObjectWeb's activity is unique in that it brings together companies and academia to back up the development of open-source infrastructure software with dedicated resources. The consortium fosters the development of a business ecosystem to promote fair competition between independent vendors who provide the services that enterprises require to take on open-source infrastructure software. For the users, the benefits combine control over costs as allowed by open-source software and freedom of choice between service providers.

"The J2EE 1.4 certification of JOnAS is a significant event in the J2EE industry, because it provides another viable open source alternative to expensive commercial offerings", said Richard Monson-Haefel, Sr. Analyst, Burton Group. "The entry of JOnAS as a J2EE 1.4 compliant application server contributes significantly to the ongoing commodization of the J2EE industry, because it offers another top-notch implementation competitive, in terms of J2EE compliance and functionality, with existing commercial vendors."

The adoption of JOnAS by a worldwide community of users and its deployment in production for mission critical applications guarantee the durability of the platform and the sustainability of its development. Certification of compliance to the J2EE specifications is now expected to accelerate JOnAS' adoption by mainstream enterprises and governmental agencies.

ObjectWeb is an international consortium of academia, corporate and individual members hosted and represented by INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control. The certification of JOnAS has been made possible by the licensing of the J2EE Specification and Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) to INRIA under Sun's license terms friendly to non-profit and open source projects. JOnAS was the first open-source project to be awarded such a scholarship by the Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) Review Board (Apache Software Foundation, Doug Lea, professor of Computer Science, State University of New York at Oswego, and Sun Microsystems) in September 2003.

INRIA and Sun then worked several months to put in place the proper legal framework that would allow the ObjectWeb community of members to certify JOnAS' compliance. The certification process itself started in April 2004.

"JOnAS development and certification has been a collaborative effort involving many industry stakeholders and research centers including ObjectWeb co-founders", declared Gerard Giraudon, Director of Development and Technology Transfer, INRIA. "As open-standards become increasingly important in the world of middleware, JOnAS' certification also represents the completion of a successful transfer of technologies originating in fundamental research towards an industry-ready middleware platform. Thanks to guaranteed compliance with J2EE, products based on JOnAS are a safe choice for enterprise users and a success of technology transfer."

"The certification of JOnAS is a tremendous accomplishment that demonstrates how community-driven, collaborative development of open-source software can leverage open-standards to produce industrial-grade middleware platforms", declared Jean-Pierre Laisne, ObjectWeb Chairman and Linux & Open-Source Strategy Manager with Bull. "We were very excited to benefit from Sun's open-source friendly licensing terms through the Compatibility Scholarship Program. We are looking forward to enduring collaboration with open standardization bodies such as JCP. We salute all the contributors that have made this accomplishment possible, as this success eventually relied on their skills and professionalism".

JOnAS is a platform integrating original code with best of breed components from ObjectWeb and other open-source communities: Carol, HOWL, Ishmael, Jeremie, Jonathan, Joram, JORM, JOTM, Medor, Monolog, Perseus and Speedo from ObjectWeb; Axis, EWS, Jakarta Commons, Struts, Tomcat, Velocity, WSDL4J, XMLBeans from Apache; HsqlDB, JacORB, JGroups, Mx4J, P6Spy, XDoclet and XJavaDoc from the open-source community at large.

JOnAS is part of ObjectWeb's roster of over 80 open-source middleware components and platforms. They complement the J2EE stack with high-level, production ready components addressing business integration, service-oriented architectures, enterprise portals, business processes, workflow and advanced software engineering tools for aspect oriented programming, grid computing, transaction management, interoperability, XML processing and mobility based on open standards.

ABOUT OBJECTWEB

Founded in 2002 by Bull, France Telecom and INRIA, ObjectWeb is a consortium of leading companies and research organizations from around the world who have joined forces to produce the next generation of open-source Middleware. ObjectWeb's goal is to provide Real-Time Enterprises with independent solutions which combine quality and robustness at the best possible performance/cost ratio. ObjectWeb targets alternative solutions to proprietary products for e-business, EAI, data connectivity, grid computing, and enterprise messaging. Based on open standards, ObjectWeb's middleware includes application servers, components, frameworks and tools. Examples of ObjectWeb's "cost killer" platforms are JOnAS - an open-source implementation of the J2EE specification, JORAM - a message-oriented middleware with JMS(tm) / SOAP connectors and Enhydra - a Java/XML application server.

http://www.objectweb.org

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