Frequently Asked Questions
These are questions that have come up on the mailing list so far. They are unofficial, but are best efforts by community members to record useful answers.
Those in bold type are unanswered as yet. Have an answer? Please discuss it on the mailing list, and record the conclusion here.
Q: I'd like to find out more and help etc. What do I do next?
A: Participation on the project is via the mailing list and the source code repository. You join by joining the mailing list, and by participating in discussion. You help by contributing your ideas, enthusiasm, code, documentation, tests, and intangibles.
The fundamental tenet of the ASF is that Great Communities build great code. The emphasis is on Community; the code comes from that. If you want to help, just join the mailing list, see what needs to be done, and do it.
Welcome. 
Q: Where is the mailing list? How do I subscribe?
A: The mailing list is geronimo-dev@incubator.apache.org. You subscribe by sending e-mail to geronimo-dev-subscribe@incubator.apache.org.
Q: Is there an archive?
A: Apache ["J2EE" Archives]
Q: Is there a Maven generated website I can browse the javadoc & code?
A: http://www.apache.org/~jstrachan/geronimo/ though hopefully this website will move somewhere better soon
Q: Can you mail me if you're interested in me helping.
A: That's not how open source communities generally work. To the people who have asked to be contacted if Apache are interested, it's unlikely that this will happen with all the huge interest that this has generated. Better to stay in touch with the mail list.
Q: Where is the Apache CVS module
A: incubator-geronimo Browse CVS
Q: The CVS module is empty, is there an issue
A: No. The initial committers have not publicly released the base code. Be patient.
Q: Will it involve JBoss code.
A: No.
This is a new Apache project, running under Apache guidelines. The Apache Software Foundation accepts only voluntary contributions of material from authors who possess the legal right to donate it.
Q: Will Geronimo be the reference implementation of J2EE?
A: No. Though Sun are most welcome to reuse any of the code in the reference implementation. Sun are also most welcome to also donate code or examples from the reference implementation to the Geronimo project.
Q: Will it <insert some technical phrase here>?
A: It's probably worth holding these questions off for the moment. This project is bringing together members and contributions from many existing J2EE communities, and is just starting to come together.
Q: What are the rules for Geronimo?
A: See the Apache Incubator web site.
Q: What's the website?
A: Apache ["J2EE" Project]
Q: What tools do I need to learn?
A: CVS. patch. Using a mail list.
These links may help you:
Apache Contributors Technical Guide
Jakarta's Get Involved page.
Q: Relationship to JBoss and in particular, the JBoss source base.
A: Several (former) JBoss committers are Geronimo committers. The JBoss codebase cannot, and will not, be used, at all (it is LGPL).
Q: Does Geronimo replace Tomcat, JSTL etc.
A: No. Geronimo includes other services like Tomcat or Jetty for the web container, OpenJMS for the JMS, Tyrex for the transaction manager etc. So Geroimo focusses on being the J2EE container allowing other services to drop in via JMX.
Q: What other projects will Geronimo reuse?
A: We suspect in the grand scheme of things to reuse various existing open source projects. Anything which has a suitable BSD / ASF licence is up for grabs. e.g. the following is a likely list of the things well be using (though in no way is this definitive)...
From the ASF licensed projects...
MX4J for JMX
- Tomcat or Jetty for Web Container
- Axis for Web Services Stack
- James for email
OJB and others for JDO & plugins to the CMP engine
- commons-jndi for JNDI - (1).
ThomasMahler important note: Hibernate is not licensed under ASF but under LGPL! Hibernate also does not provide a JDO compliant interface!
As well as some non-ASF licensed stuff which is BSD licenced
OpenJms for JMS
- Tyrex for Transaction Manager
As well as the usual infrastructure...
- commons-logging / log4j for logging
- Xerces for XML parsing
maybe more of JakartaCommons as needed
Maven for building the distributions & website **REMARK: What about ANT & Forrest for building the distributions & website (without being competetive ;-))!?!
- JUnit for unit testing
(1) There is currently a JNDI implementation in Tomcat's CVS. It might be better to move this to Jakarta Commons so we can all work & extend it - there are various features from Jetty and OpenEjb we'd like to add?
Q: So is Geronimo going to be based on Avalon?
A: Quick answer: We'll reuse whatever tools we think we need, when we need them, to make Geronimo a kick ass certified J2EE container. One day Geronimo may even become an Avalon container of sorts but thats out of scope right now.
Longer answer:
To be certified Geronimo needs to fully support JMX and JNDI. So the current plan is to follow the direction of Tomcat 5, Jetty & JBoss and to use MBeans to register & wire the services together along with JNDI.
There are a lot of different 'services frameworks' such as JMX, Avalon, PicoContainer, Spread, Java Beans etc. The only one we absolutely must support is JMX - so we'll focus on that first. However there is no reason why Geronimo cannot have other kinds of containers dropped in as services (Avalon, PicoContainer or whatever). From Geronmio's perspective its just a bunch of MBeans.
Also whatever component model or libraries a particular service wishes to use is up to it - that shouldn't really affect the core container. So Avalon containers and components are more than welcome to be deployed inside Geronimo.
Please remember that J2EE container is a little different from an Avalon container. Avalon is a generic service & component framework. The core Geronimo container is an optimised J2EE JMX, EJB & MDB container developed from a great deal of experience of JBoss, OpenEJB & mx4j. Just because they are both 'containers' of sorts does not necessarily mean they should reuse the same code.
This argument is not unlike saying 'we should just all reuse the same web aplication framework rather than having JSP, JSF, Velocity & Tapestry etc.' Whilst Geronimo & Avalon are in the same general ballpark they have quite different motivations & use cases which leads to quite different code bases if you want to do them well. Like most things the devils in the details.
If the Avalon community wish to spread their wings and encourage more folks to use their framework we'd suggest focussing more on the services which drop into Geronimo, like Tomcat, Jetty, OJB, Tyrex etc.
(FWIW James & OpenJms runs in Avalon Phoenix, and thanks to that can indeed already run in JMX containers)
Q: What is Elba?
A: Please see the Elba Web site. The Elba code is unrelated to the Apache J2EE Project.
Q: Will Geronimo be compliant with Sun's CTS.
A: A major goal for the project is to certify Geronimo as a J2EE application server. This certification will require passing the entire Technology Compatibility Kit ([/TCK]) for J2EE, including any CTS for sub-projects.
Q: What standards are targeted and which are under active development?
A: Geronimo will be certified against the J2EE 1.4 specification and [/TCK]. That specification determines the version for sub-specs like EJB and Servlet. A list can be found in [/J2eeSpecs].
Administration Overview such as an amalgamation of many projects or one large project with subject areas.
Timeline to 1.0 (what does it include).
What is Geronimo's Architectural vision and what does the back plane look like (i.e., is it JMX based?).
Q: What is the logic behind naming the Apache J2EE project as "Geronimo" ?