You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to user@geronimo.apache.org by Scott Anderson <po...@gmail.com> on 2005/06/06 02:25:40 UTC
RSS Syndication and Aggregation
I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution. In my
mind this service would make it easy for developers and content
providers to...
1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
3) manage subscriptions
4) provide statistics on feed usage
I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request will
be something like..."great, why don't you get started on that".
Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same lines though. I
will be attempting find some time to work on a ROME GBean (https://
rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium term. I'll be happy to
share that code with any interested parties once I have something. No
guarantees on when that'll be.
If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how to
integrate with it, or what features you think are important, I'd be
happy to hear from you here.
Scott
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by "Geir Magnusson Jr." <ge...@apache.org>.
On Jun 5, 2005, at 8:25 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
> I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
> Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution. In
> my mind this service would make it easy for developers and content
> providers to...
>
> 1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
> 2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
> combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
> 3) manage subscriptions
> 4) provide statistics on feed usage
>
> I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request
> will be something like..."great, why don't you get started on
> that". Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same lines
> though. I will be attempting find some time to work on a ROME GBean
> (https://rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium term. I'll be
> happy to share that code with any interested parties once I have
> something. No guarantees on when that'll be.
Great! Why don't you get started on that?
:)
Seriously - please do...
If you get something done, we should probably think about a SVN tree
for "applications" like this.
geir
>
> If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how to
> integrate with it, or what features you think are important, I'd be
> happy to hear from you here.
>
> Scott
>
>
--
Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437
geirm@apache.org
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Scott Anderson <po...@gmail.com>.
On Jun 7, 2005, at 11:50 AM, Dain Sundstrom wrote:
>> This health reporting system you describe seems to be a worthwhile
>> project and should shed some light on how this syndication service
>> could be structured and integrated with. I am thinking of
>> leveraging Geronimo's support for JMX to generate the content for
>> these feeds. Let me know if you know of a more appropriate
>> mechanism to do this type of system introspection.
>>
>
> I'd just say try to get this working in Geronimo as a GBean serving
> dummy data, and then I'll help you get a hook directly into the
> Geronimo kernel. From the kernel you can access everything without
> having to code against ugly JMX apis. Also JMX is an optional add-
> on for Geronimo so it is best not to tie yourself to it.
>
I found some time this weekend to get started on this. Should I be
looking at the KernelRegistry class as a starting point?
Microsoft has jumped on the RSS bandwagon. I find myself identifying
with their perspective on the potential for this technology. Where it
makes sense I am considering the possibility of leveraging a spec
that Microsoft has proposed for extending RSS to be able to declare a
feed as an ordered list and provide meta data that a feed client can
use to present syndicated changes to the contents of or ordering of
the set of list items. The extensions' spec has been submitted with a
Creative Commons license.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/understanding/rss/
simplefeedextensions
http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/understanding/rss
In addition to this 'RSS Feed Server' that I will be constructing as
a configuration of Geronimo application services, I will also be
applying these same syndication services to the development of a
client-side 'RSS Application Server' Geronimo configuration which
will manage a set of feeds subscribed to run on that client. As
opposed to an RSS document that gets viewed in a browser or news
reader, an RSS application feed would get served up with a mime type
of 'application/rss+xml' when a link to an application feed
(subscribe button) is clicked on within a browser. As the RSS
application gets started with a subscribe event there would be a
matching unsubscribe event a user communicates to the application
server that ends the lifecycle of the RSS application. Think of a
feed containing described application events instead of articles. Of
course there is no reason that an RSS feed server could not reside on
the same Geronimo node as an RSS application server in an aggregation
or P2P deployment model.
I see podcasting as an example of a class of RSS applications that
includes audio feeds, video feeds, and media feeds. An RSS
application server running on your laptop could include podcasting
services that would automatically install a downloaded audio feed to
your iPod or might translate the audio file into a format compatible
with your preferred audio player. The next version of iTunes will
have this functionality built in so in a certain light it could be
seen as an RSS application server. Alternately, an RSS application
server running on your MacMini (or any personal media server) could
do basically the same thing but stream the audio files over WiFi to
your stereo speakers instead of performing the iPod sync to provide
for a personal radio station. I also believe that there will be many
useful RSS application classes like podcasting that will go beyond
the realm of content oriented applications.
Scott
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Dain Sundstrom <da...@iq80.com>.
On Jun 7, 2005, at 10:54 AM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>
> This health reporting system you describe seems to be a worthwhile
> project and should shed some light on how this syndication service
> could be structured and integrated with. I am thinking of
> leveraging Geronimo's support for JMX to generate the content for
> these feeds. Let me know if you know of a more appropriate
> mechanism to do this type of system introspection.
I'd just say try to get this working in Geronimo as a GBean serving
dummy data, and then I'll help you get a hook directly into the
Geronimo kernel. From the kernel you can access everything without
having to code against ugly JMX apis. Also JMX is an optional add-on
for Geronimo so it is best not to tie yourself to it.
> I can see some simple workflow functionality being gradually
> introduced into a system like this. Say the JMX health state or
> statistics indicated some action was required. In this case the
> feed content could include a link into the relevant part of the JMX
> console UI where some suggested actions can be presented for user
> execution.
We could hook this into the yet-to-materialize management console.
> Also, since images can be presented in the contents of RSS/Atom
> feeds there is an opportunity to present the state of the server
> and its services using charts and graphs!
This is going to be very cool!
-dain
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Scott Anderson <po...@gmail.com>.
This health reporting system you describe seems to be a worthwhile
project and should shed some light on how this syndication service
could be structured and integrated with. I am thinking of leveraging
Geronimo's support for JMX to generate the content for these feeds.
Let me know if you know of a more appropriate mechanism to do this
type of system introspection.
I can see some simple workflow functionality being gradually
introduced into a system like this. Say the JMX health state or
statistics indicated some action was required. In this case the feed
content could include a link into the relevant part of the JMX
console UI where some suggested actions can be presented for user
execution.
Also, since images can be presented in the contents of RSS/Atom feeds
there is an opportunity to present the state of the server and its
services using charts and graphs!
Scott
On Jun 7, 2005, at 12:26 AM, Dain Sundstrom wrote:
> I have been thinking about this for a little bit now, and I'm
> really excited. What I'm thinking is we use RSS to syndicate
> server health information. For example, we could have a simple
> feed with an article for each application loaded into the server,
> and the content of the article is health information about the
> application. This way and admin just needs to check his RSS
> browser every morning to see what is up.
>
> Even better... we could make the system easily accessible to users,
> so they could write a custom feed that contains information health
> specific about their application. I think this will lead to a lot
> of innovation, and be an easy way for new users to familiarize them
> selves with the internal workings of Geronimo.
>
> I'm excited so as you said "great, why don't you get started on
> that". Is there anything I can do to help you get started? Also
> I'm normally on irc all day so if you want realtime help just
> connect to #geronimo on the freenode.net.
>
> -dain
>
> On Jun 6, 2005, at 10:59 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>
>
>>
>> You could look at this as an application service that would enable
>> blogging and podcasting applications.
>>
>> Alternately, you could look at it more abstractly as a generic
>> subscription and notification system...a lightweight JMS type
>> thing. For example, RSS/Atom could be used to enable someone to
>> subscribe to a category of a product catalog, where notifications
>> would get sent out if there were any additions to, removals from,
>> or updates of products in that category. This service could also
>> be used in workflow design patterns for routing events. The
>> notifications don't have to be human readable. The feeds could
>> contain any sort of XML meta data that gets consumed by another
>> service or application. Feed subscriptions will eventually be
>> customizable using rules and preferences for filtering, combining,
>> and republishing feeds...enabling new kinds of aggregation solutions.
>>
>> You asked how Geronimo could possibly take advantage of this as a
>> system service. I suppose that developers or system administrators
>> might want to subscribe to certain system events that typically
>> get logged and have them presented and delivered in a nicely
>> formatted RSS/Atom feed. I don't really see it appropriate for any
>> inter-service communication within a Geronimo node at this point.
>> However, RSS/Atom could be used to implement an aggregation
>> service framework that runs across many Geronimo nodes or perhaps
>> to support the management of those nodes.
>>
>> That said, I suspect that RSS/Atom will always be focused on
>> content applications. I see podcasting evolving into a multimedia
>> distribution system leveraging other technologies like BitTorrent
>> and DRM with a real potential to become the TiVo for the internet.
>> This system will require complex solutions such as for matching
>> the right content types and formats with compatible devices. I
>> spent a couple of years working on a JSR 124 implementation and
>> see a lot of parallels with how ring tones and MIDlets currently
>> get provisioned on mobile phones and how the RSS/Atom space is
>> evolving.
>>
>> Scott
>>
>> On Jun 6, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Dain Sundstrom wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 5, 2005, at 5:25 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
>>>> Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution.
>>>> In my mind this service would make it easy for developers and
>>>> content providers to...
>>>>
>>>> 1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
>>>> 2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
>>>> combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
>>>> 3) manage subscriptions
>>>> 4) provide statistics on feed usage
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request
>>>> will be something like..."great, why don't you get started on
>>>> that". Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same
>>>> lines though. I will be attempting find some time to work on a
>>>> ROME GBean (https://rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium
>>>> term. I'll be happy to share that code with any interested
>>>> parties once I have something. No guarantees on when that'll be.
>>>>
>>>> If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how
>>>> to integrate with it, or what features you think are important,
>>>> I'd be happy to hear from you here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Interesting idea. I'm not too familiar with rss other then rss
>>> feeds from blogs and new sites. What sort of information do you
>>> see Geronimo serving via RSS? I mean I'm sure we could serve
>>> general information like blogs, but I'm curious if we could use
>>> this for management of some kind or something totally different.
>>>
>>> Again cool idea,
>>>
>>> -dain
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Dain Sundstrom <da...@iq80.com>.
I have been thinking about this for a little bit now, and I'm really
excited. What I'm thinking is we use RSS to syndicate server health
information. For example, we could have a simple feed with an
article for each application loaded into the server, and the content
of the article is health information about the application. This way
and admin just needs to check his RSS browser every morning to see
what is up.
Even better... we could make the system easily accessible to users,
so they could write a custom feed that contains information health
specific about their application. I think this will lead to a lot of
innovation, and be an easy way for new users to familiarize them
selves with the internal workings of Geronimo.
I'm excited so as you said "great, why don't you get started on
that". Is there anything I can do to help you get started? Also I'm
normally on irc all day so if you want realtime help just connect to
#geronimo on the freenode.net.
-dain
On Jun 6, 2005, at 10:59 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>
> You could look at this as an application service that would enable
> blogging and podcasting applications.
>
> Alternately, you could look at it more abstractly as a generic
> subscription and notification system...a lightweight JMS type
> thing. For example, RSS/Atom could be used to enable someone to
> subscribe to a category of a product catalog, where notifications
> would get sent out if there were any additions to, removals from,
> or updates of products in that category. This service could also be
> used in workflow design patterns for routing events. The
> notifications don't have to be human readable. The feeds could
> contain any sort of XML meta data that gets consumed by another
> service or application. Feed subscriptions will eventually be
> customizable using rules and preferences for filtering, combining,
> and republishing feeds...enabling new kinds of aggregation solutions.
>
> You asked how Geronimo could possibly take advantage of this as a
> system service. I suppose that developers or system administrators
> might want to subscribe to certain system events that typically get
> logged and have them presented and delivered in a nicely formatted
> RSS/Atom feed. I don't really see it appropriate for any inter-
> service communication within a Geronimo node at this point.
> However, RSS/Atom could be used to implement an aggregation service
> framework that runs across many Geronimo nodes or perhaps to
> support the management of those nodes.
>
> That said, I suspect that RSS/Atom will always be focused on
> content applications. I see podcasting evolving into a multimedia
> distribution system leveraging other technologies like BitTorrent
> and DRM with a real potential to become the TiVo for the internet.
> This system will require complex solutions such as for matching the
> right content types and formats with compatible devices. I spent a
> couple of years working on a JSR 124 implementation and see a lot
> of parallels with how ring tones and MIDlets currently get
> provisioned on mobile phones and how the RSS/Atom space is evolving.
>
> Scott
>
> On Jun 6, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Dain Sundstrom wrote:
>
>
>
>> On Jun 5, 2005, at 5:25 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
>>> Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution. In
>>> my mind this service would make it easy for developers and
>>> content providers to...
>>>
>>> 1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
>>> 2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
>>> combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
>>> 3) manage subscriptions
>>> 4) provide statistics on feed usage
>>>
>>> I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request
>>> will be something like..."great, why don't you get started on
>>> that". Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same
>>> lines though. I will be attempting find some time to work on a
>>> ROME GBean (https://rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium
>>> term. I'll be happy to share that code with any interested
>>> parties once I have something. No guarantees on when that'll be.
>>>
>>> If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how
>>> to integrate with it, or what features you think are important,
>>> I'd be happy to hear from you here.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Interesting idea. I'm not too familiar with rss other then rss
>> feeds from blogs and new sites. What sort of information do you
>> see Geronimo serving via RSS? I mean I'm sure we could serve
>> general information like blogs, but I'm curious if we could use
>> this for management of some kind or something totally different.
>>
>> Again cool idea,
>>
>> -dain
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Scott Anderson <po...@gmail.com>.
You could look at this as an application service that would enable
blogging and podcasting applications.
Alternately, you could look at it more abstractly as a generic
subscription and notification system...a lightweight JMS type thing.
For example, RSS/Atom could be used to enable someone to subscribe to
a category of a product catalog, where notifications would get sent
out if there were any additions to, removals from, or updates of
products in that category. This service could also be used in
workflow design patterns for routing events. The notifications don't
have to be human readable. The feeds could contain any sort of XML
meta data that gets consumed by another service or application. Feed
subscriptions will eventually be customizable using rules and
preferences for filtering, combining, and republishing
feeds...enabling new kinds of aggregation solutions.
You asked how Geronimo could possibly take advantage of this as a
system service. I suppose that developers or system administrators
might want to subscribe to certain system events that typically get
logged and have them presented and delivered in a nicely formatted
RSS/Atom feed. I don't really see it appropriate for any inter-
service communication within a Geronimo node at this point. However,
RSS/Atom could be used to implement an aggregation service framework
that runs across many Geronimo nodes or perhaps to support the
management of those nodes.
That said, I suspect that RSS/Atom will always be focused on content
applications. I see podcasting evolving into a multimedia
distribution system leveraging other technologies like BitTorrent and
DRM with a real potential to become the TiVo for the internet. This
system will require complex solutions such as for matching the right
content types and formats with compatible devices. I spent a couple
of years working on a JSR 124 implementation and see a lot of
parallels with how ring tones and MIDlets currently get provisioned
on mobile phones and how the RSS/Atom space is evolving.
Scott
On Jun 6, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Dain Sundstrom wrote:
> On Jun 5, 2005, at 5:25 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
>
>
>
>> I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
>> Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution. In
>> my mind this service would make it easy for developers and content
>> providers to...
>>
>> 1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
>> 2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
>> combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
>> 3) manage subscriptions
>> 4) provide statistics on feed usage
>>
>> I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request
>> will be something like..."great, why don't you get started on
>> that". Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same lines
>> though. I will be attempting find some time to work on a ROME
>> GBean (https://rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium term.
>> I'll be happy to share that code with any interested parties once
>> I have something. No guarantees on when that'll be.
>>
>> If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how to
>> integrate with it, or what features you think are important, I'd
>> be happy to hear from you here.
>>
>>
>
> Interesting idea. I'm not too familiar with rss other then rss
> feeds from blogs and new sites. What sort of information do you
> see Geronimo serving via RSS? I mean I'm sure we could serve
> general information like blogs, but I'm curious if we could use
> this for management of some kind or something totally different.
>
> Again cool idea,
>
> -dain
>
>
Re: RSS Syndication and Aggregation
Posted by Dain Sundstrom <da...@iq80.com>.
On Jun 5, 2005, at 5:25 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
> I would be interested in a standard "RSS Syndication/Aggregation
> Service" getting included with a future Geronimo distribution. In
> my mind this service would make it easy for developers and content
> providers to...
>
> 1) serve up dynamically generated RSS feeds
> 2) subscribe to remote feeds with support for filtering and/or
> combining feeds and then republishing them (XSLT?)
> 3) manage subscriptions
> 4) provide statistics on feed usage
>
> I suspect that the Geronimo dev team's response to this request
> will be something like..."great, why don't you get started on
> that". Hopefully, others have been thinking along these same lines
> though. I will be attempting find some time to work on a ROME GBean
> (https://rome.dev.java.net/) in the short to medium term. I'll be
> happy to share that code with any interested parties once I have
> something. No guarantees on when that'll be.
>
> If anyone has suggestions on how to structure this service, how to
> integrate with it, or what features you think are important, I'd be
> happy to hear from you here.
Interesting idea. I'm not too familiar with rss other then rss feeds
from blogs and new sites. What sort of information do you see
Geronimo serving via RSS? I mean I'm sure we could serve general
information like blogs, but I'm curious if we could use this for
management of some kind or something totally different.
Again cool idea,
-dain