[jbpm-dev] jBPM5 Request for Comments

[Kris Verlaenen]

Xu Huisheng wrote:
> Hi Kris:
>   I am glad to see there is still a plan for jBPM. But I can't find 
> more details in this roadmap. It is just design a overall view for 
> jBPM5, but there is still many problem in jBPM 4. If there is a plan 
> to maintain the current version of jBPM 4.x, it will very helpful to us.
See my reply to Sebastian:
" This however does not necessarily mean that jBPM 4.x is "finished".  
We know there are some issues that need to be dealt with (where some of 
them have even been solved in the latest snapshot code already), and 
we're also looking into that.  Community involvement here is definitely 
welcome, so please drop me a message if you want to help out."

>   In the jBPM 5 archetecture figure, there is just a 'Core Process 
> Engine' but no more details for the PVM and jPDL. Will we drop the 
> support of jPDL and turn to the BPMN and drools?
We have been participating in the creation of the BPMN2 specification, 
and we believe it is a big step forward.  Therefore, we want to target 
our future development to BPMN2.  Having a standardized language instead 
of a proprietary one is almost always a good thing (quality, 
interoperability, etc.).  And because BPMN2 also allows you to easily 
extend the language if necessary, it still gives us the flexibility we 
need as well.

So yes, we are looking at moving towards BPMN2 as the main process 
execution language and moving away from proprietary languages as jPDL 
and RuleFlow.  Especially since we believe that BPMN2 will be able to 
support the same (process language) features as jPDL, but we welcome 
feedback on this.  Not sure why you are saying "BPMN and drools" though? 
Drools Flow is in exactly the same situation, as that also had a 
proprietary language, but will also move to BPMN2.

> Because I just find 'jBPM (3.x) convert plan' here. So I think whether 
> we could make a more clearly details for the PVM and jPDL4?
The reason is that jBPM 3.x is currently the officially supported 
version.  As part of this service, we will provide a migration path from 
jBPM 3.x to jBPM5.  This however does not there will be no migration 
path for jBPM4.  We hope and believe that, with some help from the 
community, we can extend that to also support jBPM 4.x to jBPM5 migration.

Kris