December 15th, 2005
Open source is real Alchemy
James Governor brings up the old Alchemy idea in a recent posting. You might recall that Alchemy, introduced by Adam Bosworth during his stint at BEA (he’s now at Google), was going to provide a platform that allowed Web applications to function offline. James points to Tim Bray’s announcement at ApacheCon around the Apache Derby project, an open source Java database (Java DB), and integration with Sun’s software stack. The Derby code originally came from IBM’s Cloudscape Java database. James puts the announcement in perspective:
Web 2.0 is going to need models for offline useage if its going to enter the mainstream and start heading into rich client territory. If only I could take bloglines with me when unplug my laptop…
RSS is going to become a two way street, this being the read/write web (hat tip to Richard Macmanus, Hal is just a johnny come lately) and that means a store of some kind at either end of the pipe. We need to be able to deal with both wire truth and database truth.
Yahoo just bought del.icio.us. So why not build a del.ico.us for my desktop? Josh now has the resources, and here is a potential mechanism for implementing such a thing.
We can expect a response from Eclipse to the latest Derby news. The need to include a standard data store in the platform has become rather pressing. Derby is the obvious choice. Like IBM’s Jon Prial said, Cloudscape is viral as hell. Well done IBM for setting it free.
Open source is the real alchemy here, with Apache as an intermediary allowing the blending of Sun and IBM intellectual property, turning base metal into gold. Another recent blending was Derby and Roller.
This is all good, if like me, you like Web-based apps. The launch of Microsoft Vista next year gets more and more interesting. Hey dude, who stole my advantage?
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
