Because this is a major release, I am including most of the release text in Large System Notes - links are at the end.
December 16, 2003 -- Today's fourth release by the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI) includes a wide range of software, services, documents and recommendations for the effective use of information technology in research and education. NMI-R4 emphasizes open-source solutions to issues critical to collaboration across multiple organizations that may be separated by geography and by divergent local computing architectures.
Eclipse V3 Build M5 was recently released at Eclipse.org. With 18 million downloads and going strong, check out the M5 release by clicking on the Nov 21 What's New. See also the announcement from one of the original sponsors - SUsE.
PNL stands for Probabistic Networks Library, an implementation of Bayesian statistics and graph theory to provide tools that can learn and discover anomolies in data streams. This looks to be a remarkable set of tools for advanced software that will handle routine and not so routine tasks. From the New Scientist:
"Microprocessor company Intel is soon to release a set of Bayesian network software libraries to help software developers to build better machine learning capabilities into their programs.
Bayesian networks combine two mathematical approaches, Bayesian statistics and graph theory, to provide a powerful means of modelling probabilities based on continuously updated information. Using Bayesian networks, programs can dynamically "learn" by constantly modifying probabilities using a fixed set of rules.
Bayesian networks are already used in some programs which, for example, can learn the characteristics of unwanted "spam" email by analysis of previous messages that the user has classified as legitimate or not.
Software libraries provide code that carries out common tasks. This lets programmers build more complex applications, without having to create every segment from scratch."
Check out the information at Intel's Research site, and read the article at the New Scientist. For more, see also Intel's Open Source Library.
In development is a very interesting project to provide a tool to manage large storage arrays.
Openfiler is a powerful, intuitive browser-based network storage management utility. Openfiler, combined with the underlying Linux-based Operating System, delivers file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework. Take a look at a preliminary roadmap.
Check out the details at OpenFiler.
A major corporation, IO-Software, has released as a freely downloadable Java package, their fully functional Community Architect Edition (CAE) for Model Driven Architecture (MDA), named ArcStyler.
I have called this powerful modeling and design tool the solution to Real Software Engineering. Making this edition available as Java freely means that any programming team that wants to build reliable and maintainable software now has every reason to use this version of ArcStyler. Broad use of this tool could change the quality and costs of software across the industry.
More than that, ArcStyler also supports re-engineering of older software in a variety of languages, and assistance to rebuilding software in a different language than originally written. Some of these features will not be free, but the ability to solve long standing software challenges is worth that and more. Strongly Recommended.
Download the CAE version at www.ArcStyler.com/product_download. Join the MDA Developer community at www.mda-at-work.com.
Raleigh, N.C. Momentum toward an open source web-oriented integrated development environment for connected devices and systems continues to build as members of the Eclipse.org C/C++ Development Tools (CDT) project team on Monday (March 31) announced immediate availability of CDT 1.0.
In a related development, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has transferred AspectJ, a nascent Java language extension and its Aspect Oriented Software Development toolkit to the Eclipse.org open source community for inclusion in the Eclipse IDE. It is designed to fix problems that occur in large software systems by separating out and centralizing software for crosscutting issues.
Eclipse is a good example of the platform class of tools. These are frameworks that provide a structure where special purpose components can plug in and share work together without any specific platform programming other than observance of the component interfaces. The platform is then customized for an individual or group by plugin components that provide specific functions and services.
Eclipse was originally developed by IBM and donated to Open Source after a reported $40 million was spent developing it. Since then, a large number of companies have joined the project and added tools and functions to the Eclipse framework. Any developer or company who develops software should be evaluating this meta-tool for software development.
Eclipse, Zope, Apache and similar projects represent the leading edge of new application software development. Building good tools and applications are a demanding process, beyond all but the largest corporations. With the power of the Web and Open Source coupled with commercial backing, these past limitations are disappearing. Developments like these platforms, based on open standards, will become a major force in future development. Here is a good overview on Eclipse.
To get a feel for Eclipse's capabilities, a good article is the Eclipse Modeling Framework (Using EMF) in the Featured Eclipse Corner Articles. The example shows how to define a data model, generate code and test the result. Then enhance, test, repeat as needed. Instant (almost) working code.
The current Eclipse version is 2.1 M5, which is also RC0 for 2.1. You can also read the list of enhancements for 2.1 and the plans for 2.2 in the What's New Section.