Apache Rave Graduates To Top-Level Status

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced that Apache Rave, the organisation’s open-source mashup engine, has graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a top-level project (TLP).

Apache Rave is an open-source software mashup platform that enables developers to build and engage with an array of social network technologies, such as OpenSocial, Activity Streams and W3C Widgets. Rave’s lightweight and extensible approach to robust personalisation and collaboration capabilities supports a simple model for integration across other platforms, services and solutions, ASF officials said.

Sign of approval

Graduating to top-level status in ASF signifies that a project’s community and products have been well-governed under the ASF’s meritocratic process and principles.

“Internet social platforms, such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter have shaped the expectations of today’s users, creating an onslaught of demand for pervasive social integration within both consumer and enterprise applications,” said Matthew B. Franklin, vice president of Apache Rave and lead software engineer at The MITRE Corporation, in a statement. “Developers today are constantly faced with the need to deliver low-cost, scalable, modularised applications with deep-rooted social capabilities. Apache Rave is the first open-source project chartered to deliver a lightweight, flexible, widget-based platform to meet these demands.”

The ASF said Apache Rave bundles the efforts of several independent open-source initiatives that address similar functionality and requirements into a single, enterprise-grade platform that easily scales across federated application integrations, social intranets, and multi-channel social communities with enhanced personalisation and customised content delivery.

The Rave project was seeded by code donations from MITRE, Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute, SURFnet, OSS Watch, Hippo and numerous individual developers, ASF said.

“Apache Rave takes the good bits from traditional portals, leaves out whatever made them so heavyweight, and adds modern web technologies like OpenSocial, Widgets, Social Networking, Mobile delivery and Content Services,” said Ate Douma, Apache Rave incubating champion and chief architect for open-source CMS vendor Hippo, in a statement. “Rave has already proven to be a platform not to be underestimated. Hippo is proud to be an initiator and participant of this project, and plans to make Rave an integral part of its context-aware content delivery platform.”

Extensibility

“The Apache Rave project delivers a perfect platform for our personalised University Portal,” said Sander Liemberg, project manager at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, in a statement. “Together with SURFnet, we hope to develop, integrate and use all possible OpenSocial aspects to benefit our academic community to the fullest.”

“As participants in Apache Rave, we are very interested in applying its capabilities to managing scientific collaborations and access to computing resources,” said Marlon Pierce, Science Gateway Group lead at Indiana University and Apache Rave project management committee member, in a statement. “Rave is also interesting because of its capacity to be extended by developers: Rave provides a packaged, out-of-the box experience, but we are also trying to ensure it can also serve as a starting point for developers who wish to extend its capabilities. In particular, we at Indiana University are taking the specialised requirements of the National Science Foundation XSEDE Science Gateway programme.”

Since entering the Apache Incubator in March 2011, the Apache Rave project has successfully produced several code releases in preparation for its first production-ready, v1.0 release. In addition, Apache Rave recently received an honorable mention in the 2011 Open-Source Rookies of the Year awards sponsored by Black Duck Software.

“We are pleased to have been a founding member of the Apache Rave community and are excited for the future of the project,” said Joel Jacobs, CIO at MITRE, in a statement. “Rave will be a cornerstone capability for our internal and external users, and we look forward to the continued collaboration and co-development with the community.”

Apache Rave software is released under the Apache License v2.0. Apache Rave source code, documentation, mailing lists and related resources are available.

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