Yesterday morning the USERS mailing list of GlassFish had a thread asking How to start and run GlassFishV3 without Netbeans... so, Alexis wrote and posted a quick Survival Guide on using GlassFish without an IDE .

From question to documentation in a few hours: self-publishing, no webmaster to contact, all links to online documentation... and no lawyer to check with :-)

Indeed.COM shows a spike in the number of GlassFish-related jobs around end of January (snapshot, live); the date roughly coincides with the reassuring noises from Oracle on CiC. The absolute job numbers are still small, but I expect them to continue to grow, specially as we release our detailed Roadmap.

In other good adoption indicators:
• Mail traffic at USERS@GlassFish ; see MarkMail
• Google Trends (snapshot, live).

And, before you ask; the roadmap is very close...

Our friend Felipe Gaúcho died of a heart attack this last Friday . Felipe was one of the founders of CEJUG, the Ceará JUG, and created the Premio Universitario Java. You probably know Felipe from his active blog where he covered many topics - his last post was just Thursday.

I last saw Felipe during JavaOne - full of enthusiasm as always - and we had exchanged email this Tuesday; we will all miss him sorely. Many other people also had the luck to work with him - see the notes from Hildeberto, PeterP, Claudio and Kevin.

My condolences to Felipe's family. If you knew Felipe, please consider leaving a comment in the CEJUG Notice.

The breadth and depth of the community is nicely illustrated by the variety of recent GlassFish-related blog posts. First, long time GlassFish supporter Masoud has a very detailed (it's actually a chapter of a book) OpenMQ from A to Z entry. On the operations side, Byron has a set of two posts on How to Run GlassFish V3 as a Service on Linux Ubuntu/Debian and a follow-up on using a non-root Service (see also thisGentoo variation by Jason), while Felipe's on provisioning GlassFish v3 resources with asadmin.

In the "nice words" category, Juliano has a nicely written "Java Enterprise Development - 2010 style" piece and Maksim says "GlassFish is becoming new de facto standard in Java applications. Development with new GlassFish v3 server and Eclipse now is really fast and comfortable. Server starts within a second, JEE6 is fully supported and hot code replacement works as it should.".

On the Java EE 6 and web tier side we have Bobby sharing a tool for exploring the platform, Aleksey discussing a "Grizzly 2.0: simple authentication example", while Justin puts GlassFish embedded to work with Wicket. Rene has a two-part article on running a Java EE 6 Client Application with Netbeans 6.8 and GlassFish V3 - Part 1: Creating a Basic Application and Part 2: Enhancing and Deploying the Application while Jacob goes through the simple setup to have GlassFish and Intellij 9 work together.

So while we wait for the GlassFish roadmap, we've seen one of the busiest month ever for February on the user mailing list and this recent message from the GlassFish Product Management "GlassFish, and by extension, Metro, are strategic Oracle products". Exciting times ahead!

Java EE 6 adoption and overall momentum is still going strong. In the past few days there's been a InfoQ piece on how compelling EJB 3.1 are, a blog post by the Caucho folks around the Java EE 6 Web Profile which they intend to support soon in their Resin product, while Mert has a detailed step-by-step "Getting Started with Java EE 6" document featuring a demo application focusing on JSF (using PrimeFaces), CDI, among other things.

Meanwhile on the JAX-RS/Jersey side of the house, Dustin has been busy writing blog posts with the latest one about "Jersey/JAX-RS Method Designators" illustrating the importance of clean error handling. Going beyond the specification, there's also been a lot of community discussion about potential hypermedia and HATEOAS (Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State) support with exploratory work by Santiago. This page is a good place to start reading about this.

On the GlassFish side, one of the new features in v3 has been to extend the ability to create a platform service to the Windows OS. Byron has this additional blog entry on "Making GlassFish v3 Platform Services Survive Logoff". While on the GlassFish v2.x side of things, Byron also discusses offline configuration at a cluster level.

Oracle is hosting a number of Welcome Sun events worldwide, starting on early March going through end of April. The events cover cities in all continents; the full list is at the Oracle webpage.

Some selected cities cover Identity Management, SOA, Enterprise Java, GlassFish and AppServer Directions; these are marked with "*" in the page (21 as of this writing).

Detailed event information is already available for some of the cities (e.g. Madrid, on March 17th), I assume others will show up as the dates near.

This year's JavaOne will be Sep 19-23 in San Francisco. The new time is to align with Oracle OpenWorld, which will be held, as previous years, at the Moscone Center and surrounding locations.

Call for Papers is now open and the deadline is Mar 14. Details of the event are still unfolding but, since OpenWorld will take most of the Moscone site, JavaOne will feel different than in previous years. Hopefully you can help us make the "new" JavaOne a special event in its own way while taking some advantage of the extra resources that Oracle brings in.

Expanded from @glassfish. Also see JCP announcement.

Now that the See Oracle+Sun acquisition is settling down, it is time to plan how to move forward on many fronts. As part of that, I'd like to revisit how we use Twitter (@glassfish) and FaceBook.

I did a quick sample/pass over how other groups/companies are using Twitter (see How Many Followers Does Whole Foods Have?) but if you have any feedback please post it as comments on this entry.

I still have to look at our approach to FaceBook; comments on it are specially welcome.

Catching up on Hudson news in the last couple of weeks:

The most important change is that on Jan 27th, during the Strategy Presentations around the completion of Change in Control of the acquisition of Sun, Thomas Kurian indicated that Oracle was going to continue supporting Hudson as an Open Source project, to be integrated into Oracle's offerings (other CiC news in the Summary Post).

As part of the CiC, Kohsuke is now in the Developer Tools group, under Ted Farrell, which provides continuity for the current arrangement: although Kohsuke will no longer report to me, he will work full-time on Hudson with a large number of other committers into the project.

In other news:

• Kohsuke has made available a MSI Installer for Hudson on Windows (download).
• Tyler has started the new official Hudson Blog.
• Follow Hudson News via Twitter at @hudsonci.
• We will continue to track key Hudson news at TA and @glassfish.

The Sun-Oracle Strategy WebCast and subsequent Webcasts and Docs generated multiple comments and discussions threads in the Web from which I want to highlight a few comments in here. Please check the original posts for context, clarification and caveats.

On OSS licensing - "There are no plans to change the open source GlassFish licensing for any of the GlassFish modules that I am aware of as I work directly with the team right now in the integration process" (Mike Lehmann, Director of PM for WebLogic Server and GlassFish).

On clustering - "Clearly GlassFish 2.1 has clustering today and 3.0 currently does not. Customers depend on the GlassFish 2.1 implementation and as I have said on TSS we are committed to continue supporting it per our lifetime support policies" (ML).

More on clustering - "We are very much working with the team to assess how clustering will fit on the 3.x roadmap given it was already on the original 3.x roadmap - the ideal will be at least parity with 2.1 - so judge on the result when we deliver versus ahead of the plan" (ML).

Ultimately, all of these comments will need to be judged by the reality of what Oracle delivers. As I wrote at TSS, "The Proof of the Pudding is in the RoadMap". In that same thread, Mike writes: "You will have to judge us on how we execute over the next few months while we realign roadmaps and delivery schedules but I hope we can surprise folks with some good turns we can do as a combined company."

It is still very early in the process of integrating the GlassFish team into Oracle; remember that the two companies could not work together before CiC. Hopefully we will soon be able to give you more details.

Today, February 3rd 2010, at 10 AM Pacific Standard Time, Prasad is talking about SailFin V2 (Sun GlassFish Communications Server 2.0) in the latest edition of Sun Software Webcasts. The webinar will cover new features in SailFin V2 and also explain how to develop SIP applications using SailFin V2.

You can register here for the webinar. For more information, please take a look at Prasad's blog.

This running entry collects key announcements related to Oracle's Acquisition of Sun; some from the Jan 27th event, some from companion webcasts, and some later announcements.

The main theme of the acquisition is "We're Changing the Way you Buy, Run and Manage Business Systems".

Main Entry Points:

• Sun Acquisition
• Jan 27th Strategy Event. Includes webcast, highlights and presentations. 5 hours but worth it.
• Strategy Webcast Series.

From the Software Segment of the Strategy Webcast Series:

• Jeet & Hasan on Java Strategy. Covers JavaFX, JavaSE, Blu-Ray, GlassFish, JavaCard, Developer Sites, JCP, JavaOne Java For Business.
• Hasan Rizvi on Application Server. GlassFish, WebLogic, protecting investment in existing products, Oracle Application Grid, Grid Architecture, jRockit, Coherence, Tuxedo, OpenMQ, GlassFish WebStack and GF SpaceServer - and Liferay, Sun WebServer, Portal Server, Oracle WebCenter. Check slide 12 (and 6'12") for current level of details on WebLogic/GlassFish alignment.
• Richard Sarwal and Steve Wilson on Oracle Enterprise Manager and xVM OpsCenter. Combined story covers discovery, provisioning, updating, monitoring - including for virtualized assets. Application-to-disk management.
• OpenOffice, with Michael Bemmer. Open Source, name changes, Oracle value proposition, Web-Based version, JDeveloper support, Extensions, ODF-support, integration with other Oracle products.
• Cloud with Richard Sarwal. A pretty good presentation covering IAAS, PAAS, SAAS; Private and Public Clouds; range from Silo > Grid > Private Cloud > Hybrid including Private and Public Cloud; cloud-in-a-box. Discontinuing the Sun public cloud offering but leveraging Sun's technology, including Q-Layer team for Oracle products that provide flexible, self-service, dynamic services.
• Operating Systems by Edward Screven.

From the Systems Segment of the Strategy Webcast Series:

• Storage with Mike Shapiro, including OpenStorage and Flash products. Blade Server and x86 Rack Server are covered by Ali Alasti; Archival (tapes) by Jim Cates, and SPARC Servers by Masood Heydari.

Other Links and Project Status:

• Overview and FAQ for Developer Community - Covers SDN, Java.Net, Java.Sun.Com, BigAdmin, Kenai, JavaOne and more.
• Developer Tools FAQ
• Kenai - Public Site To Be Merged Into Java.Net; infrastructure supports NetBeans.org and will support Java.Net and other sites.
• WonderLand - Group at Oracle is Shut Down, but they go on their own. See New Blog Site.
• Darkstar - Project shutdown
• LivelyKernel - Seems to have moved to a New Site.
• Derby/JavaDB - Live and well (Still here).

Additional Information - Oracle continues to update their site; see also:

• Middleware Home

Press, Analysts, Friends, Others:

• @Redmonk - Cote and Stephen.
• NYtimes, WSJ, PCWorld, MercuryNews, CNet and many more...

• Competitors:
  Savio Rodrigues (IBM/Geronimo), Mark Little (JBoss) and Sateesh Narahari (MuleSoft),
• Friends:
  Scot McPhee, Markus Eisele, and Douglas Dooley.
• Thread at TSS, including posts by Mike Lehman, PM for WLS.

A general comment is that we need some time to put the roadmap together; remember that the Sun people could not work with Oracle folks before CiC, so, if there had been a detailed roadmap it would have come from Oracle, not a collaboration...

SunSolve is the standard Sun mechanism for distributing "patches" to Sun products, with content ranging from Free Public Releases and Security Patches to For-Free bug-fixing patches (the majority) and is in a multiplicity of formats, from ZIPs to PKG(5).

SunSolve has been adding features recently, including some navigational help that I just discovered, so sharing them...

• A twitter account: @SunPatches,
• New, per-product, content pages, including SailFin Patches and GlassFish Patches.
• Better Introduction, Home Page and PatchFinder.

A full-list of categories is here - I'm afraid the GlassFish-related products fall under several places; to help you, we summarize them at GlassFishForBusiness and we report them via Twitter at @GlassFish.

I do not yet know what is the transition story for SunSolve to Oracle, but we will let you know as we find out.

Today was the Oracle Sun Strategy live webcast hosted by Charles Philips, John Fowler, Thomas Kurian, Edward Screven and others that ended with a Q&A with Larry Ellison. The recording is not yet available but Oracle released a number of other useful webcasts and docs today.

The Oracle + Sun Product Strategy Webcast Series has short (15-20') webcasts with more detailed information on most topics - e.g. App Server, Dev Tools, Manager/OpsCenter, Java, Cloud, Virtualization, OS, OpenOffice, etc.

The FAQ on Community Continuity that includes Java.Net, Java.Sun.Com, JavaOne, and more.

There is also a series of events around the world in a Welcome Sun Event Series.

Oracle's acquisition of Sun has completed. The first indicators appeared yesterday, with Scott's goodbye, the stock delisting and the CBOE Contract Adjustment; the final confirmation was today's Oracle PR.

Press reports from: WSJ and NYTimes. Tune into Today's Webcast.

Expanded from @glassfish.

JAG is Looking Forward and put together a visual of Duke snorkeling (or rather snorceling?) with Sparky.

Hopefully this Wednesday's Webcast will clear out more details beyond those from the October 27th's Overview (although the Change-in-Control is not likely until later, so it will be interesting to see how we can/cannot answer questions from the webcast).

As advertised (and discussed) on the USERS mailing list earlier this month, Jersey 1.1.5 (an update to the JAX-RS 1.1 implementation) has now been released.

This new release works on Goggle App Engine, includes Hudson-inspired tracing and will align with the also now released Atmosphere 0.5 release. Many samples are also included, some of which come from Bill Burke's (JBoss RESTeasy lead) book.

You can get to Jersey 1.1.5 by reading the instructions on Paul's blog, or simply by waiting for GlassFish v3's update center to host it (wait for the notifier to ping you or check the content of the repository).

The European Union Commission today unconditionally approved the Oracle acquisition. See reports at WSJ, NYT, GigaOM, ElReg and elsewhere, and tune to the Webcast of Jan 27th.

James has a created an image with Tux and Duke for the ocasion, check out So Long, Old Friend, and consider leaving a comment, if you are so inclined... and get a mug.

We have released an updated version of the JavaEE 5 SDK. Update 8 includes Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1.1 and Java SE 6 Update 18 (download, release notes and instructions).

Note this is the GlassFish v2 / JavaEE 5-based release; we keep it going in parallel with the new GlassFish v3 / JavaEE 6-based release as it includes features like clustering and HA support (see Comparing v2 and v3).

Expanded from @glassfish.

Larry Ellison will host a live webcast on "Oracle + Sun Strategy Update" next Wednesday, Jan 27th, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. PT. See: Press Release, Event Link and Registration Page.

You need to register with Oracle to attend the event; I just did that and it worked, although it took a while.

Added - The EU Commission has approved the merger.

Expanded from @glassfish.