People and places you should get to know

If you need help with OSGi, here are some people and places that will prove invaluable.

Official sites

The following is a list of important sites, which will prove useful:

• Home page: http://www.osgi.org is the official home page of the OSGi Alliance.

• Manual and documentation: http://www.osgi.org/Specifications/HomePage. The OSGI specifications represent the most in-depth explanation of OSGi available to developers.

• Wiki: http://wiki.osgi.org/wiki/Main_Page. The OSGi Alliance maintains a community wiki.

• Blog: http://blog.osgi.org/ is the OSGi Alliance blog stream.

• Source code: The OSGi Alliance maintains the specification for an OSGI environment, while other projects provide implementations. Two popular implementations are Apache Felix and Eclipse Equinox. The Apache Felix source code can be found at http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/felix/trunk, while the Eclipse Equinox source can be found at http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/viewvc.cgi.

Articles and tutorials

The following is a list of important tutorial sites, which will prove useful:

• Apache Felix tutorial series:

  http://felix.apache.org/site/apache-felix-osgi-tutorial.html

• Peter Krien's series on BND Tool:

  http://www.aqute.biz/Bnd/Bnd

• OSGi with Eclipse Equinox Tutorial:

  http://www.vogella.com/articles/OSGi/article.html

• Listeners considered harmful: The "whiteboard" pattern:

  http://www.osgi.org/wiki/uploads/Links/whiteboard.pdf

• A beginners tutorial series:

  http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-2008/jw-03-osgi1.html

Community

The following is a list of important community sites, which will prove useful:

• Official mailing list sign up: https://mail.osgi.org/mailman/listinfo/interest

• Official forums: http://www.osgi.org/Forums/HomePage

• User FAQ: http://www.osgi.org/About/FAQ

Blogs

The following is a list of important blogs, which will prove useful:

• The blog of Peter Kriens, former technical director of OSGI:

  http://softwaresimplexity.blogspot.com

• Felix Meschberger is the current Apache Felix PMC Chairperson:

  http://blog.meschberger.ch

• Neil Bartlet is among the most influential people in the OSGi community. His blog can be found here: http://njbartlett.name

Twitter

Some useful Twitter handles are as follows:

• Follow OSGi Alliance: http://twitter.com/#!/osgialliance

• Follow Peter Kriens: http://twitter.com/#!/pkriens

• Follow Neil Bartlett: https://twitter.com/#!/njbartlett

• For more Open Source information, follow Packt at http://twitter.com/#!/packtopensource