What is Project Zero?
Project Zero is an incubator project started within IBM that is focused on the agile development of the next generation of dynamic Web applications.
Think Corporate Gibberish Generator meets Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.
Why is it called Project Zero?
The name Zero is a reminder of the project’s aspirations.
IBM: we took the “web” out of “web 2.0″. And the “2″. And the dot. And then we managed to make the “0″ more complicated.
Zero unnecessary overhead and complexity.
Pay no attention to the 191 MB of prerequisites behind the curtain. (51 MB Java SDK + 140 MB Eclipse SDK)
Zero barriers to success.
For some definition of “success” that precludes using more than 4 cores, running more than 4 instances, or making money.
Zero of what you don’t need.
…like freedom!
Can I contribute to Project Zero?
Contributions to the Zero Core are limited to approved IBM committers. Others may propose changes to the Zero Core, but the changes must be approved and committed by IBM. All intellectual property on such suggestions is owned by IBM.
In the true spirit of Web 2.0, we’ll let you make all the content, and we’ll keep all the money.
What is Community Driven Commercial Development?
I see it as developing in a room with panoramic windows — You can see in, we can see out…
Do not tap on glass. Stay behind the railing at all times. Avoid flash photography. Do not feed the developers after midnight.
While the Community Driven Commercial Development process shares many of the benefits of open source projects,
Except the freedom.
Project Zero is a Commercial endeavor and write access is restricted to IBM approved committers.
As opposed to open source projects, where even the janitors have CVS access.
In the future IBM may choose to provide commercial offerings if there is demand for support or for use beyond the limits of the current license.
But dual licensing under the GPL is right out, because the GPL has cooties.
Does this mean IBM will not be pursuing new open source activities?
IBM remains committed to open source.
For some definition of “committed” that involves taking but not giving.
That fact that Project Zero is based on a number of open source technologies and that it represents such a significant investment on top of these technologies speaks to IBM’s commitment.
More than you will ever know.
“The name Zero is a reminder of the project’s aspirations.” Isn’t there an easier joke to make here?
Comment by n8han — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
> That fact that Project Zero is based on a number of open source technologies and that it represents such a significant investment on top of these technologies speaks to IBM’s commitment.
I’ll lump this into the same back of “open source” commitments as Tivo.
Comment by Noah Slater — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 3:14 pm
s/back/bag/
Comment by Noah Slater — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
Microsoft’s “shared source” (aka “look but don’t touch, if you look then we own your soul and anything that you do in the software industry forever”) did this years ago.
And they were actually serious. They would let people look at some source code, but actually using it or extending it meant nothing more than donating time to Microsoft.
Comment by Old news — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
> What is Community Driven Commercial Development?
>> I see it as developing in a room with panoramic windows — You can see in, we can see out…
Q. Where you on the night of XXX?
A. Can I have a cigarette? And, can you get that light out of my face?
Comment by Mage2k — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
I’ve never understood the whole concept of dual-licensing with the Gnu license. I mean, the whole point of the Gnu license is to negate all other licenses. You can’t control the work, you can’t patent the work, you give up your moral rights to the work, etc., etc. How can you both simultaneously retain ownership and cede ownership?
Comment by Jeff Harrell — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
Maybe you should read the GPL. You clearly are not familiar with it. You don’t give up any of the ‘rights’ that you listed. You grant certain permissions to others, in return for certain obligations. When these downstream recepients do not want to abide by the obligations of the GPL they can seek out another license from the copyright holder.
Comment by Anonymous — Tuesday, July 3, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
> For some definition of “committed” that involves taking but not giving.
Hold on. Isn’t IBM the third-largest contributor to the Linux kernel? I think that counts as giving back.
Comment by Nick Thomas — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 12:15 am
> Pay no attention to the 191 MB of prerequisites behind the curtain.
“The Project Zero environment includes a scripting runtime for Groovy and PHP with application programming interfaces optimized for producing REST-style services, integration mash-ups and rich Web interfaces.”
So you want these things to run on thin air?
Comment by San — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 2:44 am
> > For some definition of “committed” that involves taking but not giving.
> Hold on. Isn’t IBM the third-largest contributor to the Linux kernel? I think that counts as giving back.
Er… yeah, to the Linux kernel. That is but one open-source project, albeit an important one.
Before we break out the torches and pitchforks we should see if IBM pushes fixes and patches upstream. I agree that the draconian license is somewhat forbidding, but let’s try and keep a little bit of an open mind. Maybe I’m just too young and naîve in thinking that IBM may be a good OSS player.
Comment by sjs — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 3:55 am
sjs: you’ll come around. After you’ve gotten burnt (badly, once; or a little, but often enough), you’ll find out why there are people who are so “close-minded” about licences. If you compromise on principles, you’ll end up paying for it sooner or later. This isn’t ivory tower thinking, it’s real-life experience.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 4:17 am
“Zero barriers to success” uh? Someone is still writing that kind of gibberish?!? Amazing.
Comment by Giulio Piancastelli — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 4:37 am
Drink Zero Coke, and develop on Zero Stack. That’s supposed to be Uber cool now?
Comment by Chui — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 6:19 am
>Er… yeah, to the Linux kernel. That is but one open-source project, albeit an important one.
IBM also donated the core of the Xerces XML parsers for Java and C to the Apache Software Foundation, and Lotus, an IBM company similarly provided the seed of the Xalan XSLT libraries. I’m pretty sure Apache Axis started at IBM. With the release of Java 6, Sun integrated IBM’s Derby database into the base distribution. And there’s no denying the impact of Eclipse as an open source project upon the Java IDE market, if not the wider Java GUI app development world.
I don’t know anything about Project Zero beyond Mark’s post, but IBM deserves more credit for OSS participation than their Linux contributions.
Comment by Joe — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 11:29 am
Spot on Mark, now I am subscribed to this blog again.
Who on earth needs that JDK junk.
Zero-it!
Pile of agile nonsense, what’s next, Hibiernate as way to self-destruct.
Comment by Humanoid — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
Here comes Sam Ruby and IBM Restul Web Services with 124 MB of bloat behind it.
Comment by Q — Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 2:35 pm