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Other Topics => Development => Architecture => : admin May 27, 2007, 09:00:09 PM

: OpenSAM
: admin May 27, 2007, 09:00:09 PM
From the OpenSAM.org (http://OpenSAM.org) website:

OpenSAM (Open Simple Ajax Mashups) is a set of recommendations and techniques for integrating SaaS applications into incredibly powerful and flexible solutions.

OpenSAM is run by a consortium of leading Web 2.0 application vendors and integrators.

OpenSAM is open to everyone. OpenSAM is the only initiative designed to connect all platforms, suites, and applications, rather than a chosen few.

Their goals sound quite in line with what OpenGoo is trying to do. In fact, there already is a commercial alternative that looks a lot like what OpenGoo: ShareOffice www.sharemethods.com/products/shareoffice.html (http://www.sharemethods.com/products/shareoffice.html)
But it just isn't Open Source  :(

If you would like to learn more, you might find interesting:

What do you think?
: Re: OpenSAM
: yed June 06, 2007, 10:50:36 AM
I am not sure why we are talking about OpenSAM here. As far as I know the aim of openGoo is to create a open source web office suite. The folks at OpenSam seem to be talking about a open source standard which will enable a collection of different applications to be brought under a single suite. For that matter even ShareOffice is just a collection of applications (iNetOffice, EditGrid, ShareMethods, and salesforce.com) from the partners to provide a suite of document management. They have not created any web office application of their own!
Read more : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shareoffice_launches.php
: Re: OpenSAM
: conrado June 06, 2007, 02:42:29 PM
I mentioned OpenSAM because we came to the conclusion that the best approach for an Open Source (OS) Web Office (OSWOff) is to do a mashup of existing OS projects. Building it from zero (like Zimbra is doing) will take much longer, would take more resources, and would involve a smaller community.

By focusing on a framework to merge existing OS systems we will enable future mergers to be very easy. For instance, we may chose one platform for blogging now (lets say WordPress), but then MovableType becomes much better a year from now, and someone wants to use that platform instead. The idea is to do that with little work, empowering the OpenGoo project and giving more options for the users.
: Re: OpenSAM
: ignacio June 07, 2007, 01:48:55 AM
I signed up for an invitation to test the alpha version of Microsoft Popfly (http://www.popfly.com (http://www.popfly.com)) and got invited, so I've been playing around with it these last couple of days. The concept behind Popfly is interesting and I think we could apply something similar to the OpenGoo project. I still need to investigate it further, but the idea is something like this:

For example, in the first tutorial that they show you you use 3 blocks:

Ok, so the idea is to link the Twitter block to the VirtualEarth block by using the 'getLatestPosts' method to provide it with the image url, the title and description. Then link the Twitter block to the GeoNames to obtain the coordinates of the location returned by 'getLatestPosts', and link this to Virtual Earth to provide the last two parameters so that it can display the map. Finally you could add a Timer block to fetch the posts in regular intervals and so the webpage is always up to date.

I'm yet to see how to apply this to OpenGoo. For example, I don't see a need for a visual drag and drop interface to create the mashup in OpenGoo as it is conceived right now, since the mashup will be created by developers who know what they are doing, but may be we can allow some customization to the final user by using something similar to this. Or we could  build a similar architecture to define how the different projects will interact - the ones we'll be merging and the future ones that want to integrate to OpenGoo.

Ok, that's it for now.
: Re: OpenSAM
: Grooviak October 03, 2007, 12:10:16 PM
By focusing on a framework to merge existing OS systems we will enable future mergers to be very easy. For instance, we may chose one platform for blogging now (lets say WordPress), but then MovableType becomes much better a year from now, and someone wants to use that platform instead. The idea is to do that with little work, empowering the OpenGoo project and giving more options for the users.

I think you're right! The solution for the blogging software should be quite easy: xml-rpc support. Another topic is a complete cms integration. Maybe openGoo should only have the interface for maintain a cms. The integration could be done by bridges (to each cms)... This approach could be a lot more powerful, couldn't it?
: Re: OpenSAM
: conrado October 08, 2007, 10:54:30 AM
You are right Grooviak.

BTW, I left a reply on your related comment at the blog (http://blog.opengoo.org/?p=4#comment-8).
: Re: OpenSAM
: Grooviak October 10, 2007, 05:31:36 PM
does anybody know a web-xml-rpc editor?