GlassFish
Background
http://www.glassfish.org is an open source Java application server. The project was launched in mid 2005 and the first version v1 was released in May 2006 (integrated to multiverse for Feisty release). The next version v2 was released in Sep 2007 (integrated to multiverse for Gutsy release).
Summary
GlassFish v3 Prelude is a lightweight Web 2.0 development and deployment platform built on a modular OSGi-based architecture. It is a dynamically extensible and embeddable platform that will support multiple configurations to address a broad set of user classifications. GlassFish will shed the "one size fits all" approach typically found with application servers available today.
Release Note
Provide a modular, lightweight, highly productive Java EE server for users to to deploy against.
Rationale
Support for up-and-coming Java EE and web services standards as well as popular scripting languages and open source frameworks is a requirements in the enterprise world.
Design
GlassFish v3's current release, Prelude is a lightweight Web 2.0 platform. It provides a web container which can be extended to Java EE 6 technologies which are currently in preview status. See https://glassfish.dev.java.net/downloads/v3-prelude.html for more info.
Implementation
Glassfish v3 will need to be fully built from source to be included in 'main'. Glassfish v3 uses maven to build and pulls down several external jars that are required at compile time or at runtime.
- Packaging effort is required for the external jars
GlassFish includes it's own update center to deliver patches and additional modules. The update center needs to be either modified to provide Ubuntu packages or possibly disabled
- Since current version is V3 prelude, more packaging will be required as product adds JavaEE 6 technologies
Unresolved issues
GlassFish build relies on Maven to download dependencies from repositories. Updates are needed in Ubuntu's Maven packages for the build to leverage installed packages etc for the source build to meet 'main' requirements.