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 | This article contains promotional content .(March 2019) |
The OpenAjax Alliance is an industry group dedicated to the set of technologies and web programming techniques known as Ajax.
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| This article contains promotional content .(March 2019) |
The OpenAjax Alliance is an industry group dedicated to the set of technologies and web programming techniques known as Ajax.
In late 2005, under the leadership of IBM, a number of companies came together to discuss how to ensure that Ajax reaches its full potential as the industry standard application platform based on open technologies. These initial discussions led to the announcement of the "OpenAjax Initiative" on Feb. 1, 2006, with participation from 15 original companies, including BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend, and Zimbra. [1]
Between February 1 and May 15, 2006, an additional 15 organizations joined "OpenAjax", and the group of 30 companies held a two-day kickoff meeting in San Francisco to establish their plans. During the meeting, the decision was made to form the OpenAjax Alliance, define its mission, agree on an interim organizational process, and establish its activities. [2]
The participating companies then developed a governance model through a Members Agreement and began executing their marketing, educational and technical initiatives. The alliance's website and white paper were launched in September 2006. [3] In October 2006, the alliance elected its first Steering Committee. [4] By December 2006, the alliance had released its first technical product, the OpenAjax Hub, with a draft specification and reference open-source implementation. The OpenAjax Hub integrated a dozen Ajax toolkits on a trial basis as part of the alliance's initial OpenAjax InteropFest. [5]
As of May 2008, the organization had over 100 member organizations, including major companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, Adobe, and Sun, as well as Ajax suppliers like the Dojo Foundation, Laszlo Systems, Nexaweb, Tibco, Zimbra, and a few individual members.
In October 2012, the OpenAjax Alliance formally concluded its operations. [6]
The OpenAjax Alliance experienced steady growth in its membership. To view the complete list of members, please visit the OpenAjax Alliance homepage or the members' wiki page.
The alliance's members include organizations from various categories:
The OpenAjax Alliance members elect representatives from seven companies to serve on the OpenAjax Alliance Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is responsible for overseeing the operations of the OpenAjax Alliance on behalf of its member organizations. One of its key responsibilities is providing final approval for the establishment of working groups and the development of specifications, among other matters.
The OpenAjax Alliance develops formal materials through its Working Groups. Currently, there are two formally chartered working groups that operate according to the alliance's established process documents.
The Interoperability Working Group focuses on technical activities related to Ajax interoperability, particularly on client-side runtime issues. The group's primary deliverables include specifications that define OpenAjax Conformance in detail, such as the OpenAjax Hub specifications (versions 1.0 and 1.1), as well as the management of the OpenAjax Registry.
The Marketing Working Group is responsible for the OpenAjax Alliance's communication, education, and promotion efforts. Its main objective is to promote the adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. The group produces white papers, oversees website development, and drives the strategy, high-level definition, and industry adoption of the OpenAjax Conformance term.
The IDE Working Group focuses on developing metadata standards that enable integration of various Ajax runtime libraries into different Ajax developer tools, specifically integrated development environments (IDEs). The group's metadata standard, known as the OpenAjax Metadata Specification, also serves as an industry standard for mashup widgets. The standard aims to be an intermediary format that closely aligns with popular proprietary formats, allowing for transcoding to and from the OpenAjax format. This approach ensures that support for the metadata formats is not necessary for every industry participant.
The OpenAjax Alliance establishes task forces to explore new areas of activity. These task forces consist of informal groups of members who conduct research and provide recommendations for future alliance initiatives. Currently, there are four task forces in place:
While the OpenAjax Alliance does not aim to become a formal standards body, it does actively engage in activities related to standards when necessary to achieve goals of enhanced interoperability, increased vendor choice, and the promotion of innovation. Consequently, the alliance may develop its own formal specifications or contribute to open-source projects to address significant gaps in the industry. The ultimate objective in such cases is to transition the work to a formal standards organization or an open-source project when the time is deemed appropriate.
Members of the OpenAjax Alliance are encouraged to participate in standards-related activities within other standards bodies and open-source projects. This collaboration helps to expedite the coordinated progress of OpenAjax technologies and products.
A fundamental aspect of OpenAjax Alliance's work revolves around defining OpenAjax Conformance. OpenAjax Conformance refers to the set of requirements that the alliance imposes on Ajax technologies, products, and applications. By utilizing Ajax products that adhere to OpenAjax Conformance, IT managers and web developers can benefit from the following:
For an Ajax product to achieve OpenAjax Conformance, it must fulfill the following criteria:
The OpenAjax Hub is a compact collection of JavaScript technologies designed to fulfill essential requirements for Ajax runtime interoperability. The initial release, OpenAjax Hub 1.0, incorporates the following capabilities:
The upcoming version, OpenAjax Hub 2.0, aims to expand the publish/subscribe functionalities to facilitate secure mashup workflows and client-server communications. In the context of mashups, Hub 2.0 enables the confinement of mashup widgets within secure sandboxes while offering a facilitated message bus.
The OpenAjax Alliance is responsible for developing the OpenAjax Hub Specification and provides an open-source reference implementation.
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