Lingua Franca July 19, 2009
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null.1 comment so far
1.2b people speak Mandarin, 422m speak Arabic, 366m speak Hindi, 322 speak Spanish.
Anyway, this summer, I decided to learn a new language and took my first Rumantsch class, the fourth official Swiss language, spoken by an impressive 61,815 persons last time the government checked in 2000 (count me in now, that’s 61,816).
To be totally accurate, the so called Rumantsch language (or Rhéto-Romanche), is split in … five quite different idioms. The one I’m learning is called Surmiran, spoken by about 2,200 persons. My résumé will really be unique now.
Onward,
Sacha
P.S.: Before you call on my sanity, you might want to know that my wife speaks Rumantsch very fluently (it is her mother’s mother tongue) and that we spend quite a decent amount of time every year in the part of the Alps where this language is spoken. I’d call that “social integration” 
JBoss + Exo announcement July 19, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.3 comments
JBoss recently made a pretty significant announcement: a strategic partnership with eXo Platform.
(Disclaimer: I am truely excited by this announcement as this is one of the last business projet I had been working on whilst at RHT.)
Unlike many partnerships, this one is not “just” a business one (which would be perfectly find btw, I value those a lot). This alliance is multi-faceted and includes a deep community alliance since both companies will now work on a same and unique portal foundation (hence the same codebase, hosted at jboss.org). This is about recognizing each others strenghts and weaknesses and addressing them by cherry-picking the best pieces on both side.
When we first met with the Exo team (meeting took place earlier this year in Neuchâtel), we first agreed on high-level business principles to make sure an overall deal would be possible, but the remainder of the week was spent working on architectural and technical matters. None of the teams were willing to compromise on the quality of the “merged” architecture. To that end, I’d like to thank the excellent attitude of Thomas Heute, Julien Viet and Benajmin Mestrallet: at no point in time have I seen the tiring NIH syndrome (Not-Invented-Here) interfere in our discussions. The fact that Julien had an intimate knowledge of both architecture certainly helped.
10 days ago, I’ve met with both Thomas and Julien in the Fribourg Alps and I got confirmation that very active engineering work is underway.
So, let’s stay tuned to see further (and specific) announcements, but this is a great opportunity for those two companies with different but parallel strategies to focus on a common foundation.
BTW, will you be at JBoss World? I will
Onward,
Sacha
Apache? Tomcat? mod_xxx? Load-Balancing? Failover? READ THIS. June 18, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.1 comment so far
Since I have been in the middleware field, I’ve been visiting lots of customers. And a very high percentage of them are using a very similar setup for their web deployments: an Apache httpd front-end acting as a long-balancer/failover for a cluster of tomcat-related instances (“-related” since it can be any flavor of a tomcat-engine, including JBoss AS).
But each time I met with any of those users, the problem is ALWAYS the same: which load-balancing module should I be running in httpd? mod_jk? mod_jk2? mod_proxy? which version? in which setup? For which OS? Truth is that picking up the right module isn’t exactly an easy choice: all had their own little issues, shortcomings and some releases would simply not work reliably on some OSes.
At JBoss, we had decided to fix the reliability issues by providing stable releases of those mod_xxx compiled on many different OSes. Still, this wasn’t fixing the fact that none of those modules provide enough features for a sophisticated load-balancing/failover setup. Consequently, about 1-2 years ago, we initiated a new project aiming at providing a clean next-gen solution: mod_cluster.
From the mod_cluster overview page:
mod_cluster is an httpd-based load balancer. Like mod_jk and mod_proxy, mod_cluster uses a communication channel to forward requests from httpd to one of a set of application server nodes. Unlike mod_jk and mod_proxy, mod_cluster leverages an additional connection between the application server nodes and httpd. The application server nodes use this connection to transmit server-side load balance factors and lifecycle events back to httpd via a custom set of HTTP methods, affectionately called the Mod-Cluster Management Protocol (MCMP). This additional feedback channel allows mod_cluster to offer a level of intelligence and granularity not found in other load balancing solutions.
The good news is that mod_cluster recently hit the 1.0GA milestone.
So, using Apache as a front-end to your JBoss or Tomcat worker nodes? Check-out mod_cluster, I bet this will quickly become part of your deployment.
Onward,
Sacha
So, what’s up JBoss? June 8, 2009
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null, IT, JBoss.1 comment so far
For the last 8 years, JavaOne has been an important time in the year. A lot of product activity would focus on this deadline. Except for this year actually: I realized JavaOne was over just 48h ago…Well, I had a good excuse as I was extensively working on a new framework. No worries, I am not working on a new ORM or web presentation layer, but helping a friend on some “real stuff”:
So, I did a quick check of the recent JBoss announcement and discovered the “JBoss Open Choice” tagline, which included several announcements.
The most important ones were about the split of the good old JBoss AS in three distinct cuts:
- Full EE profile (with IIOP, full JTS support, etc.)
- Web profile (similar to the future EE6 profile but applied to EE5)
- Simple Web server – this is really Apache httpd and Tomcat and a bunch of mod_xxx Apache modules but available for multiple OS – not only RHEL
Engineering wise, they are mostly cuts at the same codebase (which is great QE – and patch- wise – less cost) but from a business standpoint, it offers more flexibility to the user. You can see this as the first axis of a two-axis grid.
Then, on the second axis, Red Hat now supports a bunch of frameworks typically used in enterprise applications such as Struts and Spring.
As a result of these two axis, these frameworks are available à la carte on all of the runtime cuts. I like this a lot.
As a reaction to this announcement, Rod Johnson from SpringSource posted a lengthy reply explaining how RHT was reacting to SpringSource’s leadership… A few notes are in order:
- JBoss has had a flexible architecture allowing all kind of setup (from a simple embedded micro-kernel) to a full fledge certified EE5 application server since 2001 – so the “tc” architecture if anything is just 7 years late (tc was released last year)
- The various AS cuts are here to make customer work easier and provide various price tag – SS didn’t invent the notion of a “small server”, actually they can only be a “small server” since they lack the other pieces required to be anything else.
- “SpringSource leadership blablabla”… Yes, congratulations on the Open Source Spring framework, it now catches on the popularity of Struts, so RHT should definitively try to make money on it – still I fail to see how this translates in any particular SS’s leadership? Is that a revenue/booking metric? number of tc-server customers? Spring != SpringSource.
- Tomcat and its suburbs is what it is today thanks to the work of the Tomcat community, including the amazing work done in the last 6 years by people like Rémy Maucherat, Jean-Frédéric Clere and Mladen Turk – all RHT employees. It seems that SS is fast to hijack laurels.
Truth is that I just don’t think the market needs a new runtime – especially if it doesn’t add any meaningful feature:
So, is this a “reactive move”? Yeah, possibly, even though I would more accurately call it an “opportunistic move”. I am glad RHT is agile enough to lead in so many ways but yet, jump on side opportunities when they make sense. Not doing so would be a puerile and misplaced sense of pride: 4 or 5 years ago, if BEA had properly reacted to the JBoss threat, I am not sure JBoss would have become what it is today.
Onward,
Sacha
Renault to sell an electric car in 2 years May 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Cars.4 comments
Pélata, #2 of the Renault Group (owner of brands such as Nissan), tells Le Journal des Finances that in 2011 they will mass-produce and sell a fully electrical car (not just an hybrid):
Enfin, dans un monde de plus en plus tourné vers l’écologie, Renault va innover avec la commercialisation de masse d’un véhicule 100 % électrique que nous lancerons à partir de 2011
Bullish, huh?
I am joining the AA-NIFFF committee April 30, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Regional, sponsoring.5 comments
After much lobbying from Catherine Montalto, our friend and ex-landlord, I’ve proposed my candidature to the committee of the AA-NIFFF. Yesterday evening, the general assembly accepted my candidature.
First of all, no worries, the AA-NIFFF is not some kind of new technical board or specification. Not at all. The NIFFF (pronounce /nIf/) is the “Neuchâtel Internation Fantastic Film Festival”, quoting Wikipedia:
The “Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival” (or NIFFF) is a swiss film festival dedicated to fantastic movies. It was created in 2000 by a group of friends and is now renowned nationaly and internationaly as an unavoidable reference in genre cinema. The NIFFF defines itself through a rich and diversified programming, constructed around three central axes : Fantastic cinema, Asian cinema and Digital images. The films shown at the Festival are very diversified, going from worldwide expected movies by renowned directors to unknown and underground films d’auteurs. Famous fantastic film directors have already honored the NIFFF with their presences, including George A. Romero, Joe Dante, John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Hideo Nakata.
I’ve been closely tracking the NIFFF in the past years and they’ve made tremendous progress with very little resources and very little help from the local authorities. Fitting pretty closely with my short list of events I’d like to help, I proposed my candidature to the AA-NIFFF i.e. the “Association des Amis” of the NIFFF i.e. the Friends Association of the NIFFF.
This is truely exciting and I hope my contribution will be helpful to the (AA-)NIFF.
Onward,
sacha
Busta Rhymes April 30, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Regional, sponsoring.1 comment so far
Party was a great success, people traveled from all over Switzerland to see the show. I arrived pretty late to the party (explained in another post) but I kept the good bye part for your pleasure:
I loved the DJ part at the end, it was so 1990 
(oh, and no worries, I don’t spend my evenings at parties)
Terrible Style featuring Busta Rhymes April 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Regional, sponsoring.2 comments
A few weeks back, thanks to Pierre Dubois, I’ve met with Avny Krasniqi from Terrible Style which aims at organizing events promoting a non-violent and multicultural society, mostly through the hip hop culture.
In the past years, Terrible Style organized many great parties such as the European breakdance championship in 2005 and the “Open Mind” festival with artists like Kool Shen, NTM and Kery James.
In 2009, Avni is back with a new concept. Terrible Style will organize 10 events across Switerland featuring the best European rappers (or American if possible). Again, the key concepts of those events will be “non-violence”, “multi-culturalism”, “fight against racism and xenophobia”, etc.
The first event of this 2009 series will feature a American rap super-star: Busta Rhymes. I hope I’ll see you this coming Wednesday at la Case à Chocs in Neuchâtel for this great night.
Onward,
Sacha
Sponsoring – when, why, whom? April 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Regional, sponsoring.5 comments
I’ve regularly “helped” (sponsored mostly) various cultural events/organizations in the past and as I keep doing so (and more than I did last year), I started wondering whether I had been doing this in a totally random fashion or whether I had intuitively followed some implicit rules.
While it is still a work in progress, I have observed the following:
- There is always a random (or arbitrary) aspect to the help I’ve provided: sometimes you just happen to meet somebody with a nice story, the chemistry works, etc. And that’s fine, randomness is good, just ask Sir Darwin.
- All of them are local to Neuchâtel. It is not unusual for people to promote what’s local to them, the same applies here. And given that I really like Neuchâtel, here we are.
- People must be passionate, authentic and have a vision. I only help organization or events backed by key individuals who give their spirit to what they build – I am not after industrialized events. Furthermore, those “entrepreneurs” must be truly passionate about what they’re doing, and authentic in their relationship (read: I hate buying insurances). Also, they must have a vision, they must target a (possibly difficult) goal to reach. I understand that not all events want to grow or become more “sophisticated” – and that’s fine – but I usually pass then, not for me.
- My help must be a “leverage”: I don’t want to financially fully back an event, nor do I want to help a big machine. Instead, I sponsor an event/organization whenever I feel that a small help can induce much bigger (non-linear) changes. This means that I usually help not-yet stable organizations, or having reached a fragile plateau and in need of increased viability.
Also, until now I’ve been providing anonymous help because I felt there would be no added benefit for those events (nor for me) to make it public/visible. I am now going to change this: since I start applying some “selection criteria” for events I sponsor, I think it makes sense to somehow “link them together” i.e. to publicly state that I think those events fall in a same “category”, are backed by interesting entrepreneurs, etc. People can trust my judgment or not, but those who do might find it beneficial. I’ll probably find a place on this blog where I can list those events/organization. What I lack at this point is a common brand/label that I can use as a “sponsor” to identify those events – if you have any idea, feel free to share them with me.
Onward,
Sacha
Ping… April 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null.add a comment
I’ve been away from the office for 4 weeks now and I am still alive – probably my European genes.
I started jogging, organizing my apartment, hunting down the contractors so that they finish their job, etc. Bottom line: I am busy.
In the meantime, on the IT market, things haven’t been quiet either. To that end, I’d like to thank Larry for two things: i) changing the IT landscape in RHT’s favor (and probably, as a side effect, initiating a M&A domino effect – but that’s another story) and ii) having waited my departure from RHT to do so, that was very kind.
Also, I’ve initiated a few things in the past weeks and will provide updates through this blog in the comming weeks.
I am leaving Red Hat. Onward. March 29, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.43 comments
JBoss has been part of my life for exactly 8 years and now is time for me to move on.
From my first contribution to JBoss 2.x, to setting up JBoss EMEA operations throughout the RHT acquisition, these have been incredible times for me.
So, why am I leaving now? Well, JBoss is kicking and well alive. Sales are booming, the product pipeline is full and new talents are energizing our ranks. We are now 33 months after the acquisition of JBoss by Red Hat and it is fair to say it is a great success.
Where am I going next? First of all, I am not completely leaving Red Hat, I’ll remain available as an external advisor to Paul Cormier. But other than that, I don’t have any clear plans outside of spending the next 6 months actively doing nothing.
Onward,
Sacha
JBoss to join forces with Apache CXF March 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.6 comments
We announced yesterday that we are joining the Apache CXF project. So, what does it mean exactly?
Today, our Web Services stack, JBossWS 3.0, is actually a pretty sophisticated abstraction layer which can use either our own WS implementation (JBoss WS Native), Apache CXF or Metro – and this in a totally transparent way to the developer.
While this abstraction is a nice thing to have, we cannot spread our efforts thin on those three implementations. Consequently, we have decided to focus our future efforts on a single stack: JBossWS-CXF. This will make sure we maintain our competitive edge, rapidly support current and emerging Web Services standards and ensure we have proven interoperability. Obviously, much like in the past, we will also make fully certify this stack (EE5, etc.)
So, is this a problem if you are using JBoss Native WS today? No, certainly not: this will be a long term transition and our EAP and SOA-P customers will benefit from our commitment to and long-term support for the current JBoss Native WS stack – stability and long term commitment is part of the advantages you get when you become an JBoss Enterprise Middleware customer (vs. our community/.org projects).
Congratulations to the ASF for grooming such a great project.
Onward,
Sacha
EE6 Public Draft APPROVED February 26, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.11 comments
Good news, the EE6 Public Review Draft has just been approved by the JCP Executive Committee.
Looking at the results gives some interesting information:
- The Apache Foundation voted NO, but didn’t do so based on the merits of the specs, but because of their long-standing issue with SUN wrt the SE 6 license. While I support Apache’s decision to vote NO to any SUN-led JSR until SUN gets their act together, we didn’t take such a strong stance and will only vote NO to any future SE JSR proposal (unless the ASF gets a satisfactory proposal from Sun obviously).
- SAP voted YES to the specification but commented that “[they] would like the Spec Lead to consider putting more emphasis on architectural rigor regarding a single consolidated and extensible component model to be used across the platform – right now there are three (EJB, JSF and JSR 299).” While I don’t think there are any problems with the current approach, I can see why SAP might want to dispatch things differently. The good thing is that SAP is part of all of those specs (EE, EJB, JSF, 299, etc.) so we are waiting for their specific advices.
- As always, I like to keep the fun for the end. SpringSource, the Switzerland of middleware, courageously voted NO… hum, no, they voted YES, hum, no… actually they voted ABSTAIN! SpringSource always had a hard time positioning itself wrt J2EE/EE. Consequently, this is no surprise that they opted for a non-risky position where i) they don’t vote NO to EE (not good for their karma), but ii) don’t back it either. It gives them the freedom to criticize the spec when they see fit. Opportunism at its best. Last but not least, they add this comment: “We would have preferred to see a dependency injection model for SE, as we proposed in 2007.” ?!? SpringSource never contacted us for a JSR DI specification, so I am not sure what “spec” they are referring to. Maybe some back-doors discussions with other vendors. In any case, if these were back-doors discussions, they should remain so and I find it strange to use it as a public comment to justify an ABSTAIN vote. In the land of privacy, you don’t become Switzerland overnight – and I know what I am speaking about…
Also, I’d like to officially thank our colleagues at Oracle, Google and IBM for their deep involvement between December 2008 and February 2009 to make sure JSR-299 fitted to their requirements. In just a few weeks, they’ve worked with no agenda other than solving problems. Thank you.
Onward,
Sacha
DVD collection: be my Google! February 16, 2009
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null, IT.12 comments
I am spending some time these days (actually week-ends…) trying to understand what’s the best way to move from a horrible collection of DVD to a sequence of 1 and 0, stored on a hard drive, which I can then play from various location (read: what’s the best way to watch movies in the 21st century).
(Just for the record, this is all about PAID DVDs, paid content (I’ve those ugly DVD boxes filling my place) – so all of this IS legal.)
I am trying to find a solution which:
- keeps content in an “open” format (i.e. not a proprietary or encrypted format)
- keeps maximum quality (i.e. I want the initial copy to be a “master” which I can later format-convert if needed)
- reduce the IQ required to process new DVDs
- provides a nice GUI once you actually want to consume those bits
Easier said than done. I’ve actually done my homework quite well, but I still have some doubts or things I haven’t been able to figure out.
So I figure out I would share those with you in case you have experiences you can share as well. Once my solution will be ready, I’ll obviously report it here in great details – I’ve already had several requests from people wondering about the same thing.
Questions:
- There are plenty of well organized CD databases that exist so that you can get the list of the songs, picture of the CD, etc. when you rip those. Such as what iTunes is doing. Question: does the same thing exist for DVDs? BTW, I am asking for a TRUE solution based on a UID, not some ugly tool using web-scrapping algorithm to match the DVD name to some name-related movieon Amazon.com.
- Are you aware of any decent ripping software (Windows or Linux) which will automatically open-the-dvd-tray/get the real movie name (see above)/rip the DVD in a folder named according to the movie name/eject the DVD; and this for multiple drives in the same system? If not, I’ll have to code it, fine, but I hate NYH syndromes.
- Have you tried the TVIX HD M-6500A device? If yes, what are your thoughts on it?
- What ripping format is best for a “master”: ISO or direct copy of the DVD structure in a folder (content of TS_VIDEO)? I know there are no quality differences, I am just wondering which one might be preferred for other reasons (size, easier to consumme by devices, etc.)
- Thoughts on the NetGear ReadyNAS NV+? or on the ReadyNAS Pro?
<rant>
Oh, and remember one thing, I live in Europe (Switzerland), which means that unlike in the USA, there are no decent ways to buy your movie content directly in electronic format from a 3rd party. While some ISP or telco do provide some kind of offering – it never reaches anything close to a decent specialized shop.
It seems the movie industry still doesn’t really understand what “ease-of-consumption” means. They missed the market-flip from Audio-CD to online-mp3-shops and instead prefered to complain during years that their content was being hacked on peer-to-peer network (also known as “listening to the radio” IMHO) instead of keeping the leadership by doing it themselves. Will the same drama happen for Video content? What is sure is that they are clearly not answering the needs of a growing portion of their market. How come I have to spend so much engineering time to design such a simple solution? Instead, what I am trying to achieve should be the de facto way of obtaining content.
</rant>
Thanks for your help, comments are open!
Onward,
sacha
Mobicents 1.2 GA hits the tarmac February 16, 2009
Posted by Sacha in JBoss.add a comment
Since the last Beta, the Mobicents team has done an impressive job nailing the GA down. From the Release Notes:
This GA release includes the ‘all’ JBoss Application Server configuration, which hosts a cluster-enabled Mobicents Sip Servlets container. The Mobicents SIP load balancer is also included. Note that there are some limitations when clustering is enabled and clustering is only for the Sip Servlets container. For more information see http://www.mobicents.org/clustering.html. To demonstrate clustering and mid-call failover we have included a predeployed UAS example in the ‘all’ configuration called ’simple-
distributable.war’.
Onward,
Sacha
Is it still possible for FOSS companies to raise VC capital? February 16, 2009
Posted by Sacha in Finance, JBoss.2 comments
Good question, especially in those difficult times.
And it seems the answer is a victorious YES. Here is a short list of some of the 2009 rounds:
- LoopFuse raises 1.4m USD from True Ventures (congrats Roy and the gang);
- Black Duck raises 9.5m USD in a D-series (mix of capital and … debt! congrats ) and Tim Yeaton joins as a CEO (I know observe very closely what happens in the 2 weeks after Tim joins a company )
- Talend raises 12m USD in a C-series round (Frenchies leading a FOSS company – we know that it works )
Onward,
Sacha
Russia moving to Fedora February 11, 2009
Posted by Sacha in IT.add a comment
A recent news didn’t get as much visibility as it should have gotten IMO, maybe because the original PR was in Russian.
The Russian Federation (aka Russia), which was developping its own Linux variant, decided to redirect its efforts towards Fedora – and hence RHEL for its production system.
That’s a significant move.
Onward,
sacha
Autogoal (as in “don’t speak too fast Jonathan”) February 9, 2009
Posted by Sacha in IT, JBoss.3 comments
Just one year ago, on the 26th of February 2008, Jonathan Schwartz said:
Q:Turning to MySQL, how long do you think it will take before MySQL is fully integrated into Sun? We saw with Red Hat and its JBoss acquisition that this can be a slow, laborious process….
A: First, the personalities involved. Let’s just say that integrating Marten Mickos into a company might be easier than assimilating a few of the JBoss personalities. Marten is a joy to work with and will make this integration work.
Onward Marten,
Sacha
I’ve tested for you: Do sport cars attract women? December 16, 2008
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null, Cars.12 comments
I can be considered as a reasonable car-lover (actually, I can be considered “reasonable” for anything – I am Swiss). So a few months back, I decided to satisfy an old dream and buy a Porsche 911 Turbo (a used one – I am “reasonable”). It was the perfect model, the perfect color, the perfect price and, more than anything, the perfect age: at 33, you cannot be accused of going through your mid-life crisis. Bottom line: the perfect Swiss-situation, flying under the radar.
As soon as I got my car (it was sometimes this summer), most of my friends asked me “So, does it work with women? I mean… you know…” Great question, and yes, I know what you mean.
For complete disclosure, I am the perfectly happy husband of a wonderful wife who i) thinks cars are cans with wheels, ii) vote on the left of the left and iii) elegantly hides her face with her hair when there is no choice but to use my capitalistic car to go some place. Hence, if my wife had to be the first women to go through my test, it would have been a total failure.
Now, after a few months of somehow scientific testing, I am ready to report two essential findings:
- Sport cars do NOT attract women;
- Sport cars DO attract 8 years old boys.
And this is not based on mixed-results: sport cars (Porsche at least) had no impact whatsoever on women (so inexistant that I don’t even need to define what “impact” means – nada, zero). On the other hand, 8 years old boys are totally CRAZY about them. They know everything about them and could easily trade “2 months without watching TV” against “a bumpy ride”. A friend of mine even had his son organize a ride with one of his buddies the day they had a school-organized event at a theater. Obviously, I was asked to stop the car “just in front of the theather” so they could be well visible
My wife must be right, I am like an 8 years old sometimes…
Onward,
Sacha
P.S.: for sake of completeness, I must add that my daughter Eva – she is two years old – loves my car and the noise it makes. She could even recognize the Porsche logo on a piece of paper and associate it with “la voiture de papa” when she was 18 months. Based on that, I’ll try to determine when females starts totally ignoring sport cars.
