[jboss-dev] transactions change in AS 5.0

[Jonathan Halliday]

Hello all

Arguably one for the AS list, but in light of potential 
impact on other projects I think it needs wider discussion, 
so hello dev list...

I'm pleased to say that we will shortly be announcing the 
change of licence terms for the JTS (distributed, 
interoperable transactions between e.g. EJB containers) and 
XTS (transactions for Web Services) parts of JBossTS from 
GPL/Dual to LGPL.

The current JBossAS release bundles our JTA ('local only' 
transactions), which is already LGPL.  The JTS and XTS 
options are available to the community as additional 
downloads that can be integrated into AS 4.x  The EAP 4.x 
releases include support for JTA only.  We have promised EAP 
5.x will include JTS also, and probably at least some parts 
of XTS.

Now that it's legally feasible to do so, does the AS dev 
community wish to include either JTS or XTS with the AS 5.x 
releases, in order to provide users with these increased 
capabilities?

I see the advantages as: The AS will have more functionality 
out of the box and can be pulled into the EAP with fewer 
changes. For both cases it would otherwise be necessary to 
retrofit the additional transactions pieces and retest the 
server.

I see the disadvantages as: Changing something as core as 
the transactions engine between CR and GA may raise issues 
that further delay the release. It adds additional 
complexity and footprint for something not all users need.

Hybrid solutions are available, such as sticking with the 
JTA for the 'default' config and putting the JTS into the 
'all' config. These further muddy the waters and complicate 
the testing, although I rather like it from a point of view 
of offering the most appropriate technical solution for 
users with different needs.

There may be a degree of tension here between the AS 
(community) and EAP (product).  Putting the JTS into the AS 
reduces the productisation work at the cost of more 
engineering effort in the AS for example.

I'm wearing my community developer hat today: JBossAS and 
JBossTS are open source projects, it's up to the core 
developers to discuss the engineering tradeoffs and make the 
call on this.  That may of course be unduly idealist: 
commercial realities dictate that EAP product management 
have at least some influence on the final decision :-)

Does anyone have strong opinions one way or the other on this?

Regards

Jonathan Halliday
JBossTS dev team lead.

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