Last week Thursday we had an OSGi IoT Requirements day in Berlin and next week Thursday (June 4) we will have another workshop in San Jose.
Now I always like to go to Berlin (I worked there part-time for Deutsche Telekom for about 3 years) but this time was even more special. The reason was the excitement that made me fondly remember the early days of the OSGi. The more than 30 people that signed up for the requirements day represented the industry very well and it was good to see some faces that had disappeared over time but that are now interested again.
A certain 'déja vu' was definitely present. Then again, the differences with those early days are huge. Today we have a mature proven specification, many implementations, books, and so much more. We also now face an industry where Java is no longer seen as overweight except for the smallest of devices. However, the field today is also more crowded. An impressive number of organizations have sprung up around IoT or are taken advantage of the energy in the industry. Over the past few weeks I had moved back to the future a bit by extending OSGi enRoute with some IoT support at the request of the Alliance's board. (Watch this blog if you want to use that dusty Raspberry Pi that has been lying on your shelf for the past 3 years.) I confess, I find that writing software that actually moves the world more fun than being locked up in cyberspace. And best of all, in this world they the dynamic nature of OSGi is a prerequisite.
Anyway. The workshop turned out to be a very interesting day with some really good results. We gathered quite a few topics and their requirements and had some interesting discussions. After the next workshop in San Jose (contact us on iot@osgi.org if you still want to participate, there are a few seats left) we will disseminate the results through a mailing list that we will open up after San Jose. I will also use this blog to report about progress.
Let's see what San Jose brings!
Peter Kriens
