Eclipse Concierge 5.0 Release Review

Type
Release
State
Successful
End Date of the Review Period

Reviews run for a minimum of one week. The outcome of the review is decided on this date. This is the last day to make comments or ask questions about this review.

Release

5.0

Description

Concierge is a small-footprint OSGi framework implementation targeted for embedded devices and IoT applications.

This release is aiming at full OSGi core R5 compliance for the framework as well as the supplementary components such as the launcher and optional log service. The framework can also be used as a standalone resolver bundle (compliant with the Resolver service implementation).

Besides the framework itself, the release includes several optional supplemental bundles such as a minimal shell implementation for direct interaction with the framework and a REST service for interaction over a network.

Architectural Issues

The code has reached full compliance with the OSGi standards for all relevant components, verified by running the official TCKs. We have achieved our goal of keeping the footprint small and initial performance tests indicate that Concierge is outperforming alternative frameworks in key metrics on embedded devices (see, e.g., our 2014 JavaOne presentation https://oracleus.activeevents.com/2014/connect/fileDownload/session/6E511CBAFF03CC48B49F5314E4AC607A/CON3007_Rellermeyer-java_one_2014.pdf )

Some internals of the framework could benefit from further optimization, something that we will keep working on for future releases.

Security Issues

This release does not implement the optional OSGi security layer.

Non-Code Aspects

We have improved the documentation on our new web page.

Code examples could help to onboard people with the OSGi technology in general and Concierge specifically. While some of that has been incorporated into the web page, we are working with students from UNICAMP, Brazil, to write new examples and further improve the documentation.

 

Usability Details

Concierge is primarily an OSGi framework. The key point to usability is that we provide a small, extensible interactive shell bundle that helps users to manage the framework.

Going forward, we are planning on integrating a REST service (code is written as a OSGi RI, CQ to bring it over to Eclipse needs some more time). Furthermore, it would be benefitial for the usability to have a Concierge launch target for the IDE so that developers can run develop and run their bundles on Concierge from within the workspace.

End of Life


Standards

OSGi core R5

selected OSGi compendium R5 services such as log, resolver

selected OSGi enterprise R6 services as optional bundles such as REST, REST client

selected OSGi core 4.2 services as optional bundles for legacy applications such as package admin, start level service

Communities

We are working with students from UNICAMP, Brazil as part of a Facebook Open Academy project. This includes future contribution to the existing code as well as creating demos and showcasing use cases for Concierge.

We also have a talk at EclipseCon Europe about the upcoming Concierge release and planning to submit futher talk proposals next year to developer conferences.

In the past, we had talks at EclipseCon, EclipseCon Europe, and JavaOne.

We also enganged with other projects like SmartHome and Moquette to bring up their stacks on Concierge.

At this point we are aware of industry adopters but do not have a precise understanding to which extent the companies are using Concierge already. We hope that having an official 1.0 version released helps us to build a stronger community and further encourage adoption in the field.