Goals

[Ismael Ghalimi <gh...@intalio.com>]

Good evening,

Before a decision gets made whether to put both codebases under the same
project or under separate projects, I would like to ask a couple of
clarifying questions.

First, what is the goal of the Ode project? Is it to develop an
implementation of the BPEL specification, or is it to develop a process
engine that is based on BPEL, but could support other workflow patterns as
well, as was suggested in a previous post? While both options have their own
merits, I am a little bit worried that the later could lead to a lot of
confusion and wasted efforts, especially if we were to start from two
separate codebases that have very different architectures underneath. I have
been in the process game long enough to know that not specifying the process
model upfront -- be it BPEL, BPML, XPDL or WSFL -- can take one down a path
leading nowhere. A lot of work went into the development of the BPEL
specification, and I respectfully suggest that we do not try to re-invent
this work here, at least not until we get a working version of the process
model we pick as a reference point.

Second, if we agree that the goal is to develop an implementation of the
BPEL specification, I would like us to answer the following questions. I
understand that some questions have already been answered on this mailing
list, but summarizing the answers would certainly help.

- Do we want to support BPEL 2.0, BPEL 1.1, or both?
- Do we want to be independent from any specific ESB?
- Do we want to be independent from any specific J2EE application server?
- Do we want to rely on JBI and how does it impact the previous goal?
- Do we want to have something that we can release now or can we wait 6 to
12 months?
- If we want to release something now, is it ok to have two separate
codebases under the same project?

I truly hope that providing answers to these questions will help us come up
with a solution that will maximize the number of contributors, the quality
of their contribution, and its usefulness toward the delivery of a release
that will benefit the community at large.

--
Ismael Chang Ghalimi, CEO
Intalio, The Open Source BPMS Company
ghalimi@intalio.com | www.intalio.com
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