February 16, 2010
Quick thoughts on the StreamBase Component Exchange
Streambase is announcing something called the StreamBase Component Exchange, for developers to exchange components to be used with the StreamBase engine, presumably on an open source basis. I simultaneously think:
- This is a good idea, and many software vendors should do it if they aren’t already.
- It’s no big deal.
For reasons why, let me quote an email I just sent to an inquiring reporter:
- StreamBase sells mainly to the financial services and intelligence community markets. Neither group will share much in the way of core algorithms.
- But both groups are pretty interested in open source software even so. (I think for both the price and customizability benefits.)
- Open source software commonly gets community contributions for connectors, adapters, and (national) language translations.
- But useful contributions in other areas are much rarer.
- Linden Labs is one of StreamBase’s few significant customers outside its two core markets.
- All of the above are consistent with the press release (which quotes only one StreamBase customer — guess who?).
Categories: Games and virtual worlds, Investment research and trading, Open source, StreamBase, Streaming and complex event processing (CEP)
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8 Responses to “Quick thoughts on the StreamBase Component Exchange”
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Who is going to indemnify downloading firms against negligence and intellectual property issues?
[…] Monash has commented on Streambases announcement, “CEP Innovation Goes Global…” in regards to whether or not Streambase’s newly unveiled Component Exchange will be […]
Downloading firms would, I imagine, be ones that commonly use lots of other open source software, so I fail to see how this is different from a problem they’ve already overcome.
These are good points. There is a lot of use of open source software in our core customer base, and StreamBase itself benefits from leveraging open source. And in our experience, contributing to projects pays off in both improved relationships with core developers and in better software.
Contributing back is something that individual developers are often excited about, but for which many organizations don’t yet have patterns and processes. One of the goals of the component exchange is to facilitate these contributions by StreamBase developers, to help them work through logistical and organizational concerns.
It’s a tall order, but like many controversial concepts StreamBase has advocated in the capital markets (visual programming, agile development, unit testing) I think the time is right. Use of and contribution to community provided components can be a helpful part of any development project.
Looks good and it sounds like a great idea and plan. Thanks for sharing, keep us updated.
[…] Aleri quickly threw in the towel and sold out to Sybase, which hardly changed my opinion. StreamBase actually is persevering, but not with any kind of breakout success. Big vendors, such as Microsoft and IBM, have at least […]
[…] R, Hadoop, Postgres and so on. But for projects that originate with a single sponsoring vendor, my general observation still […]
In addition to the samples shipped with TIBCO StreamBase, you can install and run components from the TIBCO StreamBase Component Exchange. The Component Exchange is an online repository of StreamBase applications, libraries, and utilities, created by StreamBase users and members of the TIBCO StreamBase team, made freely available to all users of TIBCO StreamBase.