In a distributed computing system, middleware is defined as the software layer that lies between the operating system and the applications on each site of the system. Middleware is a cornerstone of software infrastructures in the Information Society. The software developed by the ObjectWeb community complies with open standards established by independent bodies. Open access to the source code, as allowed by the open-source licenses, guarantees the best possible level of compliance with these standards.
ObjectWeb is recognized as one of the main forces in cooperative middleware development at a worldwide level. From the beginning, CNRS teams were actively involved in its foundation, but CNRS itself was not a member of the consortium. The membership agreement between ObjectWeb and CNRS makes this involvement official and allows all CNRS laboratories to be more present in the evolution of the consortium. This partnership brings together public research and industrial R&D in a model of international success in the very competitive field of software infrastructures for the Information Society.
Co-founded by INRIA, Bull and France Telecom in 2002, the ObjectWeb consortium federates over sixty companies and research laboratories, shepherds over 100 software components and leads a community of hundreds professionals from around the world. ObjectWeb is hosted and represented by INRIA and chaired by Bull. Along with CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission), CNRS and INRIA recently acknowledged the importance of open source software by creating together an open source license, called Cecill , which is in conformance with French law, while perfectly suited to international projects.
Additional Information
CNRS teams were actively involved in the foundation of ObjectWeb are: I3S (Laboratoire d’Informatique, Signaux et Systèmes de Sophia Antipolis), LAMIH (Laboratoire d’Automatique, de Mécanique, et d’Informatique industrielles de l’Université de Valenciennes), LIFL (Laboratoire d’Informatique Fondamentale de Lille), LIP6 (Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris 6), and LSR (Laboratoire Logiciel Systèmes et Réseaux de Grenoble). Their main contributions are described below:
– OASIS, a joint team between CNRS/I3S, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and INRIA (French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) is the main developer and integrator of the ProActive ObjectWeb library, dedicated to Grid computing. ProActive recently contributed to hold a new computing world record to the n-queens problem.
– LAMIH/ROI (CNRS UMR 8530) has participated to the PEPiTA ITEA European project and the IMPACT RNTL project, with the aim of developing some characteristics of the JOTM ObjectWeb transaction manager. Now, the LAMIH uses several ObjectWeb projects for its research, such as Fractal, a component model, which is used in the ARTS (Adaptable and Reflexive Technical Services) project.
– JACQUARD, a joint team between CNRS, University of Lille and INRIA, is the main developer and integrator of the ObjectWeb OpenCCM project, the first open source implementation of the OMG’s CORBA Components Specification dedicated to build distributed CORBA component based applications, and of GoTM, a framework to build highly efficient and adaptable transactional services based on the Fractal component model
– the SRC research team of LIP6 (CNRS and University Paris 6) is focused on the specification, the design, the verification, and the implementation of distributed applications and middleware platforms for large-scale systems. Within ObjectWeb, the SRC team leads three projects: the JAC aspect-oriented middleware platform, the ModFact MDA platform, and the PolyORB middleware cross-personalities platform.
– the LSR laboratory in Grenoble is an important contributor to many projects in ObjectWeb. Among the most salient successes can be mentioned the Fractal component model and its Julia implementation (with France Telecom R&D), the OSCAR OSGi implementation and the JORAM message-oriented middleware (with ScalAgent)
Researchers contacts:
– Nadia Bennani, Laboratoire d’automatique, de mécanique, et d’informatiques industrielles et humaines (LAMIH) – CNRS/Université de Valenciennes, nadia.bennani at univ-valenciennes.fr
– Denis Caromel, Laboratoire informatique, signaux et systèmes (I3S) – CNRS/Université de Nice, denis.caromel at inria.fr
– Jacky Estublier, Laboratoire logiciels systèmes réseaux (LSR) – CNRS/INP Grenoble/ Université Grenoble 1, jacky.estublier at imag.fr
– Philippe Merle, Laboratoire d’informatique fondamentale (LIFL) – CNRS/Université de Lille1, merle at lifl.fr
– Lionel Seinturier, Laboratoire d’informatique (LIP6) – CNRS/Université Paris 6: lionel.seinturier at lip6.fr
Contact department of communication and information science and technology (CNRS) : Marcel Soberman, marcel.soberman at cnrs-dir.fr
Press contacts:
Gaëlle Multier – CNRS – gaelle.multier at cnrs-dir.fr
François Letellier – ObjectWeb – francois.letellier at objectweb.org”
Link: ObjectWeb.org
