[Yanel-dev] [Fwd: [PROPOSAL] OpenCMIS incubator for Content Mangement Interoperability Services (CMIS)]

Thu Dec 10 10:44:04 CET 2009

This might be useful for Yanel as well

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[PROPOSAL] OpenCMIS incubator for Content Mangement 
Interoperability Services (CMIS)
Date: 	Wed, 9 Dec 2009 18:21:21 +0100
From: 	Goetz, Paul <paul.goetz at sap.com>
Reply-To: 	general at incubator.apache.org
To: 	general at incubator.apache.org <general at incubator.apache.org>

Hi,

we would like to propose a new incubator podling called OpenCMIS.
Please find below the plain-text version of the proposal.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Paul

------------------------
Apache OpenCMIS Proposal

Abstract
OpenCMIS will deliver a Java implementation of the OASIS CMIS specification.

Proposal
OpenCMIS provides a Java implementation of the OASIS CMIS specification. This includes a library to connect as a consumer to a CMIS repository, and a library to provide the CMIS protocol handlers on top of an existing repository. All the protocol bindings defined by the CMIS specification will be supported.

Background
The OASIS CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services) specification is a standardization effort to enable interoperability of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Systems. Like SQL became the standard for accessing database systems, CMIS aims to become a similar standard for accessing document management systems. CMIS was started by IBM, EMC and Microsoft. Most of the ECM vendors joined the OASIS Technical Committee (TC) for CMIS in the meanwhile as well.
The need for a common, open source CMIS library came up during the standardization work. David Caruana, David Ward, Florian Müller, Jens Hübel, Paul Goetz, Martin Hermes, and Stephan Klevenz from Alfresco, Open Text and SAP started an initiative and design outline to found this project. Code and some design ideas from an existing open source project owned by Florian Müller was an initial contribution to the project.
The aim is to build an object oriented Java implementation of CMIS that encapsulates the CMIS protocol bindings, mainly to support clients using CMIS. Focus of this project it to support the needs of an enterprise environment, that is reliability, performance, and monitoring.

Rationale
With CMIS being adopted by various ECM vendors, there is a strong need for repositories and applications dealing with content to support CMIS. As CMIS defines a domain model and protocol bindings, Java developers would have to implement the protocol bindings from scratch.
The CMIS specification focuses on the protocols, and is therefore service oriented. An object oriented API which encapsulates this services makes it easier for Java developers to use CMIS.
In turn, easy adoption of CMIS by Java applications should help the standard becoming widely adopted.

Initial Goals
* Implement the CMIS 1.0 protocol binding for SOAP
* Implement the CMIS 1.0 protocol binding for AtomPub
* Implement a library with an object oriented API to encapsulate the CMIS protocol bindings for consumers

Current Status

Meritocracy
The OpenCMIS contributors recognize the desirability of running the project as a meritocracy. We are eager to engage other members of the community and operate to the standard of meritocracy that Apache emphasizes; we believe this is the most effective method of growing our community and enabling widespread adoption.

Community
The OASIS Technical Committee (TC) is the community for the CMIS standard definition. Most of the TC members provide Java based ECM implementations, and are also interested to help building a CMIS library for Java.

Core Developers
The project was started by Florian Müller (Open Text) and Jens Hübel (Open Text). David Caruana (Alfresco) contributed, as well as Martin Hermes (SAP), Stephan Klevenz (SAP) and Paul Goetz (SAP).

Alignment
Apache Chemistry aims to build a CMIS implementation, too. The focus for OpenCMIS is to provide a self-contained client library for CMIS for Java only - while Chemistry is aiming at a broader scope, as it started from a JCR/Jackrabbit based approach and is planning to support Javascript as well.
As the APIs are pretty different right now, contributing the OpenCMIS code to Chemistry will be very hard to do - but on a mid-term perspective, we will review our options to merge OpenCMIS with Chemistry.

Known Risks

Orphaned Products
The contributors are working for companies relying on this library. There is minimal risk of this work becoming non-strategic. The contributors are confident, that a larger community will form within the project.

Inexperience with Open Source
The initial committers have varying degrees of experience with open source projects. There is limited access experience developing code with an open source development process. We do not, however, expect any difficulty in executing under normal meritocracy rules.

Homogenous Developers
The initial committers work for different companies (Open Text, Alfresco, and SAP). They work for different projects and knew each other only to their participation in the OASIS TC.

Reliance on Salaried Developers
Although the initial committers are salaried developers, OpenCMIS development was done both on work time and spare time. As the OpenCMIS library will be used in commercial products, some of the companies will dedicate work time to the project.

Relationships with Other Apache Products
OpenCMIS uses other Apache Products (Commons Codec, Commons Logging, CXF is planned). Maven is used as build infrastructure.

A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand
The developers of OpenCMIS could use other channels to generate publicity. We hope that the Apache brand helps to build a vendor independent, truly interoperable CMIS library. We would feel honored at getting the opportunity to join.

Documentation
[1] Information about the OASIS CMIS Technical Committee can be found at: [http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/cmis].
[2] The announcement of the public review for the CMIS 1.0 specification (containing the links to the specification) can be found at: [http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200910/msg00015.html] 

Initial Source
The current implementation can be found on [http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/opencmis]

Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan
* The initial source (see above)
* Additional source from Open Text developers (CLA in progress)
* Additional source from SAP developers (CCLA filed, CLA in progress)
* Additional source from Alfresco developers (CLA filed)
* The domain opencmis.org from Alfresco

External Dependencies
All the external dependencies of the initial codebase comply with Apache licensing policies:
* Apache Commons (Apache v2.0)
* Apache Maven (Apache v2.0)
* Sun JAXB and JAX-WS (CDDL v1.0, GPL v2)
* JUnit (CPL v1.0)

Cryptography
OpenCMIS does not implement or use cryptographic code.

Required Resources

Mailing lists
* opencmis-private (with moderated subscriptions)
* opencmis-dev
* opencmis-commits
* opencmis-user

Subversion Directory
* https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/opencmis

Issue Tracing
* JIRA (OpenCMIS)

Other Resources
* Web Site: Confluence (OpenCMIS)

Initial Committers
* Florian Müller (Open Text)
* Jens Hübel (Open Text)
* David Caruana (Alfresco)
* David Ward (Alfresco)
* Martin Hermes (SAP)
* Stephan Klevenz (SAP)
* Paul Goetz (SAP)

Affiliations
The initial committers listed are employed by Open Text, Alfresco, and SAP. One objective of the incubator is to extend the community of contributors, we assume that future contributors will have other affiliations.

Sponsors

Champions
? tbd

Mentors
? Looking for mentors

Sponsoring Entity
The Incubator

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