About the eXo / JBoss Partnership

The goal of the new project, is to forge a strong portal solution by bringing together the technical strengths of the two projects through the open source community. To further bolster this new effort, eXo Platform has contributed a new project to the JBoss Community, eXo JCR, which is a robust, cluster-ready Java Content Repository that is standards based and a key component for the project.

eXo Portal is the foundational technology for all of eXo’s products. In development for over six years, eXo Portal is known for its intuitive administrative capabilities, advanced user interface features, and a robust community presence. The JBoss Community Portal project will be the overall portal engine for the new project and is a standards-based portal framework known for its lightweight installation, robust performance, security, and scalability. It has been downloaded by tens of thousands of users over the last four years, and leverages JBoss Community technologies such as JBoss Application Server and Hibernate.

Under the terms of the partnership, eXo Platform will migrate the code base for its portal project to JBoss.org, where it will be integrated with the JBoss Portal code base. The new JBoss eXo Portal project will be licensed under the Gnu Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

FAQ about the eXo / JBoss Partnership

  • What is eXo Platform announcing today with the eXo / JBoss partnership?
  • After more than six years in development, our eXo Portal project is merging with the JBoss Community Portal to create a new open source project. In addition, eXo Platform is contributing a new project, eXo JCR, to the JBoss Community. This is our implementation of the Java Content Repository spec (JSR-170). It is a key component in the new portal project and in eXo’s existing open source projects.

  • What does this partnership with Red Hat mean for eXo?
  • We believe this partnership is a testament to the technical strengths of eXo’s open source portal software. Both projects have complementary functionality that, together, can create a stronger, open source portal product in the market.

  • What will be eXo Platform’s role with the new project?
  • eXo Platform will co-lead the project with JBoss.

  • How does the eXo community benefit?
  • The eXo community can collaborate more closely with the JBoss Community. In addition, other eXo and JBoss projects can leverage some of the key components being developed by either community.

  • What will happen to eXo’s other open source projects?
  • eXo Portal and JCR (along with some related components) will be moved to JBoss.org. All of eXo Platform’s other projects will stay on OW2 under the Affero General Public License (AGPL).

  • Why change the license at all for the new portal project?
  • We believe the LGPL will encourage broader adoption of the new portal project, as it gives companies more flexibility to leverage and OEM the product.

  • Will the eXo community have to register to participate on JBoss.org?
  • Yes

  • Will eXo Portal, JCR and other eXo products continue to be supported on multiple application servers?
  • Yes, eXo Platform is committed to broad support for all the major application servers in the market. We believe this is critical to driving enterprise adoption of our solutions and will enable customers to leverage existing IT investment. While the portal development will be done primarily on JBoss Application Server, eXo Platform will maintain support and certification process for other application servers, including Apache Tomcat, JoNAS and IBM WebSphere Application Server.

  • Will there be future joint development efforts between the two communities?
  • For now, we are only collaborating on portal software development. We will have additional news to share on this effort later this year at JBoss World Chicago, September 1-4, 2009.