I have been watching the replies and seeing what the jBPM core community developers would be saying before responding with my own thoughts on this topic. My background with jBPM is not well documented here in the forums or mailing lists. I have been using jBPM in an enterprise environment over the last three years or so as both a developer and lead developer. It started on the jBPM v3.1.x community versions and later migrated to the current supported jBPM v3.2.x. I also have had personal meetings with Tom, Joram and Koen discussing jBPM 3 and jBPM 4, be that development questions, use cases from customers or just my experiences deploying enterprise solutions into production environments. One award winning case was published (http://www.schabell.org/2009/11/2009-silver-winner-for-europe-financial.html) on the implementations we did with jBPM v3. Looking at the various sections presented by Kris in the design overview https://community.jboss.org/wiki/jBPM5RequestforComments, I will run through each section and give my thoughts: Architecture: ========= This picture is clear and concise, providing a pretty good idea of what the overview is. I miss JBoss Rules / BRMS as a block in the Connections side. I feel that Rules is just as important as JBoss ESB and you need to provide this to push your own products. On a side note, the roadmap needs to come ASAP to provide clarity where the focus is. You will see below in my evaluation, there is a focus needed on the core functionality to make something that can make it into a product. Core process engine: =============== When I look at this component I see many of the existing jBPM 4 branch as being a strong candidate to be leveraged along with whatever the Drools project has completed. Would be great if they could/would compliment each other. I am very happy to see the PVM being the leading theoretical foundations for the BPM suite. Three items are of some note: 1) process instance migration is mentioned as if it is about stateless processes. I do not see how you can manage this at all. If you show me a process you think you can migrate, I bet I can break it. 2) process instance migration could and should be a target for moving from one version of jBPM to the next. 3) jPDLv3 -> BPMN2 process definition conversion tooling is a must and I was pushing this before the split, with project space already setup: http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/jbpm/projects/migration_tool (current leads are more than happy to have someone to help on this conversion tool, great place to get your feet wet in open source!) Finally, this part of the project should have about all the attention available to ensure a speedy delivery. This is what is needed to offer customers a path into the future of BPM. Human Tasks: =========== Following a standard makes lots of sense. I do see this as a bit of an external project when related to the console and form editor. First order of business is having them available. Process repository: ============== I would assume that this component could also leverage the efforts of ModeShape project maybe? Keep work to a minimum by conforming to what they recognise as an artefact. Seems also to fall into the category of nice to have but not yet essential to initial releases. BPM Console: ========== Looks like this can and should leverage the jBPM 4.x work, the GWT console project, along with whatever Drools project can / has to offer. This is nice to have stuff. Eclipse-based process tooling: ====================== To leverage jBPM 4.x existing tooling and Drools project tooling. The extra bits mentioned are again fine for later releases. Web-based process tooling: ==================== Is Oryx / Signavio one team? I was under the impression that Drools went one way and jBPM project another... who will win now and what are the criteria to be judged? Simulation: ======== Very advanced feature that is nice to have (would make Product sales easy to visualize and demo's very slick) but nothing to focus on in the initial releases I would think. This could be an apart sub-project. BAM / BI: ====== This is a very interesting one, how to provide without dictating what a person is to get/use/have in the BAM/BI area. It should be about facilitating and ease of customization. Also an apart sub-project and not important for the initial releases. Usability: ======= Strange mix of stuff here; Domain-specific processes (what for? why? let's get normal process engine out there first?), install scripts (already there?), continuous integration (leverage existing setups?), documentation (has always been outstanding, should not slip), OSGI (what for?). Integration: ======== Every item mentioned here in this section needs to have a block in the architecture overview picture. Very good to leverage and use our own projects. Make that the easiest path. Final thoughts, I see many panic reactions on the lists/forums with regards to jBPM 4. Looking at this overview Kris provides, I expect much of the jBPM 4 will function as some sort of base line for further development. DroolsFlow will play a role and if more projects are leveraged then this overview of a BPM suite on functionality is achievable. I think the first steps need to be to ensure that customers are taken from jBPM3 to jBPM5. plan this from the beginning. Rule #1: nobody gets left behind. Regards, erics