the approval of the blueprint container specification by the osgi alliance enterprise expert group (eeg) inspired members of the eeg to start an open source project centered around implementing the blueprint spec and other technologies for osgi applications. in september the apache aries project was born in the apache incubator. the purpose of the apache aries incubator is to create a new community of people interested in building enterprise osgi technology geared toward the application programming model. for an introduction to the history and the purpose of the aries project, dzone interviewed ian robinson, a distinguished websphere engineer and a member of the osgi eeg. robinson is at the frontrunner for the apache aries project and has begun using its technology for ibm's websphere application server.
dzone asked robinson about the factors inspired the aries project. robinson said, "from a standards direction, the work of the osgi alliance eeg was to define a set of specifications that would form part of an enterprise profile for osgi." he says the eeg has approved several specs for technologies that allow osgi applications to consume existing java ee technologies like jta, jpa, jndi, etc. "the purpose of the eeg was not to try and define competing specifications but to take what exists already in the java enterprise space and define how those technologies become consumable for applications running in an osgi framework," robinson said.