Loosely Coupled Thinking

Star Destroyer: spaceship or film director?

Apparently Lucas is up to his old tricks again.   How sad.   I was hoping that Spielberg might diminish Lucas’ influence on the film.

*sigh* I’ll probably go see it anyway.

On the upside Iron Man was surprisingly good and Prince Caspian looks to be good as well.

WWT == Wow

The World Wide Telescope (WWT) is amazing - I can't wait to show my son.   You can see a demo of it from TED here.   I'm not sure when this will be available but I hope its soon.    This is a great application of the Deep Zoom effect.

BTW - if you're an astronomer wannabe like myself I highly recommend APOD's desktop of the day tool (I've been using it for years).

If you can do something it doesn't mean that you should...

I'm not really doing anything BPEL related these days but a post by Jesper Joergensen caught my eye.    Since I'm not focused on BPEL I haven't kept up with some of the developments in the BPM-related blogosphere.    Apparently Bruce wrote a post illustrating some of the fundamental differences between BPMN and BPEL.    BPMN is much more expressive so representing a BPMN process as BPEL is not necessarily an easy task.  Jesper makes a point in his post that should not be taken lightly:

BPEL is not suitable for business process modeling because it's too restrictive and machine oriented.

BPEL was never intended for process modeling - it's an orchestration language, not a process modeling language.   Using an orchestration language for process modeling is like trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver.  

SOA Fatigue

Dave Linthicum recently blogged about not attending SOA conferences because he is able to determine the core trends and messages they would be promoting.  I've thought this about SOA books, reports, trade magazines and online articles for well over a year.    Does this mean SOA is dead?   Is it time for yet another IT crisis?    Hell no.   

The answer here is simple - SOA is no longer a mysterious concept that we need conferences, presentations, books and articles to clarify for us.    We get it and many of us are actually designing and implementing it.   A couple years ago I stated that the tools were mature enough and it was time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.    Apparently there are still an awful lot of people that would rather talk and write about SOA than actually implement it.    We get it already - stop debating what it is and go build something already.

Copying the Silverlight community menu

I'm building out a website using Silverlight.  The more I learn about Silverlight the more I love it - I haven't had this much fun writing code in a long time.   This is seriously addicting stuff. 

One of the things that frustrated me is that many of the Silverlight 2 samples were not very useful.  How many people are really interested in writing a video game with Silverlight?   I needed an exciting (and easily implemented) menu effect for my web page.   I searched everywhere but didn't find much.   Many of the menus were simple block-style fly-out menus or were based upon the 1.1 (or older) release.   I finally found the effect I wanted on the silverlight.net community page.    The page features a menu that uses mouseenter/mouseleave highlighting and a little indicator that follows your mouse back an forth to illustrate which menu option you clicked.   A screenshot of the menu appears below:

I recreated this menu in Silverlight 2 by defining a simple XAML file for the menu and handling the animation in C# (instead of embedding it in the XAML):

        private void StackPanel_MouseEnter(object sender, System.Windows.Input.MouseEventArgs e)
        {
            this.Cursor = Cursors.Hand;
            
            // Create two DoubleAnimations and set their properties.
            DoubleAnimation myDoubleAnimation = new DoubleAnimation();

            // Create a duration of 2 seconds.
            Duration duration = new Duration(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.4));

            myDoubleAnimation.Duration = duration;
            
            Storyboard sb = new Storyboard();
            sb.Duration = duration;

            sb.Children.Add(myDoubleAnimation);

            Storyboard.SetTarget(myDoubleAnimation, selectionPointer);

            // Set the attached properties of Canvas.Left and Canvas.Top
            // to be the target properties of the two respective DoubleAnimations
            Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(myDoubleAnimation, "(Canvas.Left)");

            StackPanel sp = (StackPanel)sender;
            switch (sp.Name)
            {
                case "Home":
                    homeGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
                    myDoubleAnimation.To = 380;
                    break;
                case "Services":
                    servicesGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
                    myDoubleAnimation.To = 528;
                    break;
                case "HowTo":
                    howtoGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
                    myDoubleAnimation.To = 665;
                    break;
                case "Technology":
                    technologyGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
                    myDoubleAnimation.To = 810;
                    break;
                case "SignUp":
                    signupGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
                    myDoubleAnimation.To = 960;
                    break;
            }

            // Make the Storyboard a resource.
            LayoutRoot.Resources.Add(sb);
            // Begin the animation.
            sb.Begin();            

        }
        private void StackPanel_MouseLeave(object sender, System.Windows.Input.MouseEventArgs e)
        {

            this.Cursor = Cursors.Arrow;
            StackPanel sp = (StackPanel)sender;

            switch (sp.Name)
            {
                case "Home":
                    homeGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
                    break;
                case "Services":
                    servicesGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
                    break;
                case "HowTo":
                    howtoGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
                    break;
                case "Technology":
                    technologyGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
                    break;
                case "SignUp":
                    signupGlow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
                    break;
            }
        }

I used a graphic for the background glow because Silverlight doesn't (yet?) provide this option. Here is the final look and feel of my menu (without the glow):

I've attached the XAML I used for the menu (which includes the scrolling indicator).     Enjoy!

By popular demand, here is the graphic I used to make the menu glow.  Enjoy!

Wow

Seen this yet?      Take a walk or a drive around Seattle or San Francisco.    Very cool.

Well that didn't take long...

Seen this yet?    Interesting to see it pop up on Yahoo News of all places.

I had a feeling something like this was going to happen.

Fixing the WF FileWatcher sample

There is a FileWatcher WF activity sample that ships with the Windows SDK.   I initially thought this might be of value to me but when I tried to open the workflow I ran into the following error: “Theme properties can only be changed in the Theme Configuration Dialog.”   Very intuitive right?   

Actually it is an intuitive message, it just requires some knowledge  about how custom activities are built.   The original version of the FileWatcher Activity included some code in the designer initialization to make the icon for the Activity look cooler in the toolbox.   This code causes problems if you try to open anything using the activity (e,g, the workflow that comes with the example).

If you've run into this problem you can comment out the following code in the initialization activity (found in FileSystemEventDesigner.cs):

protected override void Initialize(Activity activity) 
{ 
    base.Initialize(activity);
 
    // Change the designer theme for this activity  -- This is the offending code 
    // this.DesignerTheme.BackColorStart = Color.White; 
    // this.DesignerTheme.BackColorEnd = ColorTranslator.FromHtml("#F9CB5A"); 
    // this.DesignerTheme.BackgroundStyle = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.LinearGradientMode.Vertical; 
    // this.DesignerTheme.BorderColor = ColorTranslator.FromHtml("#BF8311"); 
}

Once you comment that code out you'll be able to open the workflow and work with the designer (note that there may be other issues worth considering if you want to use this in a State Machine - the sample only uses a simple sequential workflow).

Logic Need Not Apply

Interesting story popped up on ComputerWorld today about the Microsoft offer to Yahoo.    Here's what made it most interesting to me (emphasis mine):

According to the Post, the discord revolves around Yang and his followers being so opposed to selling the company to Microsoft that Bostock and his group fear they will act out of emotions rather than their fiduciary duty to Yahoo shareholders. Such an action could expose the board to lawsuits by shareholders.

I thought it was nothing more than simple greed that motivated the initial "thanks but no thanks" response from Yahoo.  

I was part of a start-up that wound up getting acquired for a fairly paltry sum compared to an offer earlier in the year.   Our board rejected the initial, far larger offer because it "significantly undervalued the company".   Sound familiar?  

OK - I promise try to stay on topic and avoid gossip in future posts... I just couldn't resist since this brought back such painful memories.

Word of warning: the CW page is full of annoying Flash ads.   The guys behind the amazing SlickRun tool have a simple IE plug-in that makes pages like CW's easier to read.

Free XSLT Profiler

Today the XML Editor team released the XSLT Profiler Addin for VS 2008, a quick and reliable performance analysis profiler tool that assists in the development and debugging of XSLT documents. The XSLT Profiler allows developers to measure, evaluate, and target performance-related problems in XSLT code by creating detailed XSLT performance reports. The XSLT Profiler Addin for VS 2008 includes a wealth of useful hints for XSL and XSLT style sheet optimizations, which are essential for XSLT-based applications that demand maximum performance.

See a webcast demonstrating the tool here.

OASIS Call for Participation in BPEL4People

The full CFP follows the announcement from OASIS below.   I'll be watching from the sidelines this time.

Some clarifications:

• WS-HumanTask has no dependency on BPEL.   BPEL simply consumes WS-HumanTask
• BPEL4People focuses on System to Human (S2H) and Human to System (H2S) interactions.   Human to Human (H2H) is considered out of scope - these types of interactions cannot be supported with a language such as BPEL.  (None of the BPM languages are actually capable of this - see Keith Harrison-Broninski's work on Human Interaction Management for more on this topic).
• The last time I looked at it, WS-HumanTask consisted of two contracts:

I'll comment on this from time to time in the future.  In the meantime here is the CFP and information about signing up.

---

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical Committee has been proposed by the members of

OASIS listed below. The proposal, below, meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process [a]. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables,

audience, and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TC's official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC, and the

beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.

This TC will operate under our 2005 IPR Policy [b]. The eligibility

requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting (see

details below) are that:

(a) you must be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS;

(b) the OASIS member must sign the OASIS membership agreement [c];

(c) you must notify the TC chair of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, which members may do by using the "Join this TC" button on the TC's public page at [d]; and

(d) you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below.

Of course, participants also may join the TC at a later time. OASIS and the TC welcomes all interested parties.

Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [c]. In addition, the public may access the information resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be linked from the TC's public home page at [d].  

[a] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php

[b] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php

[c] See http://www.oasis-open.org/join/

[d] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=bpel4people

===========

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) TC

===========

1a. Name (and abbreviation) of the Technical Committee

OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical Committee

1b. Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical

Committee (TC) is to define (1) extensions to the OASIS WS-BPEL 2.0

Standard to enable human interactions and (2) a model of human

interactions that are service-enabled. This work will be carried out

through continued refinement of the BPEL4People and WS-HumanTask

specifications (see section References) to be submitted to the TC as

referenced later in this charter.

1c. Scope of Work

The TC will accept as input Version 1.0 of the BPEL4People

specification, and Version 1.0 of the WS-HumanTask specification as

published by Adobe, Active Endpoints, BEA, IBM, Oracle and SAP AG

(see section References).

Other contributions and changes to the input documents will be

accepted for consideration without any prejudice or restrictions and

evaluated based on technical merit in so far as they conform to this

charter. OASIS members with extensive experience and knowledge in

related areas are particularly invited to participate.

This work will focus on:

* Defining the specification of a WS-BPEL extension enabling the

definition of human interactions ("human tasks") as part of a WS-BPEL

process.

* Defining the specification of a model enabling the definition of

human tasks that are exposed as Web services

* Defining a programming interface enabling human task client

applications to work with human tasks

WS-BPEL Extension (BPEL4People Specification)

The WS-BPEL Extension Specification will define the following:

* Concept of people activity

* Composition model for human tasks and processes supporting at least

the following:

o Inline human tasks in one people activity of a WS-BPEL process,

without re-use

o Inline human tasks in a WS-BPEL process for re-use in multiple

people activities

o Standalone human tasks for re-use in multiple WS-BPEL

processes. The life-cycle of processes and human tasks is tightly

coupled using the coordination protocol implemented in a vendor

specific manner

o Standalone human tasks for re-use in multiple WS-BPEL

processes. The life-cycle of processes and human tasks is tightly

coupled using the coordination protocol and protocol service

standardized by WS-HumanTask

o Standalone human tasks, without using a particular coordination

protocol, callable using plain Web services means, for re-use between

WS-BPEL processes (invokes) and other Web services clients

* Concept of inline human tasks within a people activity and within a

WS-BPEL process. Inline human tasks within a WS-BPEL process can be

reused by different people activities within that process

* Allow people activity to reference a standalone human task

(introduced in WS-HumanTask)

* Concept of people activity context and mechanism to access the

context from the people activity definition and from elsewhere in the

enclosing scope

* Semantics of people activity states and lifecycle

o States and basic operations for people activities aligned with

the corresponding states and operations of standalone human tasks

* Concept of generic human roles for processes

* Definition of process specific people assignments

* Mechanism to use logical people groups in WS-BPEL assignments

* Support for time-based conditions on people activities, e.g.

deferred activation of a human task

* Support of specific interaction patterns

o Four-eyes principle (a.k.a. separation of duties)

* Enablement of human tasks to access context information from the

surrounding process including previous people activities and the

corresponding human tasks.

* Extension mechanism

* Ad-hoc Attachments

Human Task Enablement (WS-HumanTask Specification)

The WS-Human Task Specification will define the following:

* Concept of human tasks (i.e. tasks and notifications) as an

explicit entity independent from any process definition

* Concept of human task context and mechanism to access the context

from the task definition

* Concept of generic human roles for human tasks

* Concept of logical people groups as an abstraction for assigned

people used to hide access to organizational directories

* Definition of people assignments

* Data types representing individuals associated with human tasks

* Semantics of task states and task lifecycle

* Basic operations (API) for client application interactions with

human tasks

* Coordination protocol for processes (or other applications)

interacting with human tasks

* Handling of deadlines including escalation

* Support of specific interaction patterns

o Nomination

o Delegation

o Escalation

* Extension mechanism

Potential additional features

In addition to the specification features described above, the TC may

explore the inclusion of the following features and topics, providing

that the technical approach chosen does not contradict the scope

described above:

* Single user screen flow (chained execution)

* Workflow patterns commonly encountered in document-centric and

people-centric workflows including:

o Sequential approval through a management chain

o Parallel approval and voting

o Approval management, group vote

o Pushback

o RequestInfo

* Basic operations (API) for client application interactions with WS-

BPEL processes (e.g. adding or deleting attachments)

Out of Scope

The following is a non-exhaustive list. It is provided only for the

sake of clarity. If some function, mechanism or feature is not

mentioned here, and is not mentioned in the Scope of Work section

either, then it will be deemed to be out of scope.

The following items are specifically out of scope of the work of the TC:

* Authorization definitions

* Deployment

* Monitoring

* Organizational directories (e.g., Human Resources)

o Definition of such directories

o Specific mechanisms (including protocols) to query such

directories

* Task execution rendering and definition of user interface elements

1d. Deliverables

The TC has the following set of deliverables:

* A revised BPEL4People specification and associated schema. A

Committee Specification is targeted for completion within 18 months

of the first TC meeting.

* A revised WS-HumanTask specification with associated schema. A

Committee Specification is targeted for completion within 18 months

of the first TC meeting.

These specifications will reflect refinements, corrections or

material technological improvements with respect to the input

documents and in accordance with this charter.

Maintenance

Once the TC has completed work on a deliverable and it has become an

OASIS Standard, the TC will enter "maintenance mode" for the

deliverable.

The purpose of maintenance mode is to provide minor revisions to

previously adopted deliverables to clarify ambiguities,

inconsistencies and obvious errors. Maintenance mode is not intended

to enhance a deliverable or to extend its functionality.

The TC will collect issues raised against the deliverables and

periodically process those issues. Issues that request or require new

or enhanced functionality shall be marked as enhancement requests and

set aside. Issues that result in the clarification or correction of

the deliverables shall be processed. The TC shall maintain a list of

these adopted clarifications and shall periodically create a new

minor revision of the deliverables including these updates.

Periodically, but at least once a year, the TC shall produce and vote

upon a new minor revision of the deliverables.

1e. IPR Mode

This TC will operate under the "RF (Royalty Free) on Limited Terms"

IPR mode as defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Policy.

1f. Anticipated Audience

The anticipated audience for the documents produced by this TC includes:

* Software vendors supporting WS-BPEL 2.0.

* Software vendors offering products to support human-centric processes.

* Software developers, architects and other roles involved with

design, development, deployment and maintenance of WS-BPEL

applications and human-centric processes.

1g. TC Language

TC business will be conducted in English.

2.Required Non-Normative Information

2a. Similar or Related Work

The BPEL4People specification and the WS-HumanTask specification may

have dependencies on different technologies, such as

* BPEL4People: WS-HumanTask, WS-BPEL, WSDL, XPath, and XML Schema

* WS-HumanTask: WSDL, XML Schema, XPath, WS-Addressing, WS-

Coordination, WS-Policy

The TC will decide which version of these specifications will be used

in their final work.

Liaisons will be established with other OASIS Technical Committees as

determined appropriate by the members of the Technical Committee as

work proceeds.

2b. Date, Time and Location of First Meeting

Date: March 5, 2008

Time: 11:00 EDT

Duration: 2 hours

Mode: Teleconference

Telephone: Dial-in TBD

Sponsor: Oracle

2c. Projected Meeting Schedule

It is anticipated that the BPEL4People TC will regularly meet via

teleconference (e.g. weekly or bi-weekly) at a time determined by the

TC members during the TC's first meeting.

It is anticipated that the BPEL4People TC will regularly meet face to

face, every quarter if needed, at a time and location to be

determined by the TC members.

2d. TC Supporters

The following eligible individuals are in support of this proposal:

* Ashish Agrawal, Adobe, ashish@adobe.com

* Mike Amend, BEA, mamend@bea.com

* Chris Keller, Active Endpoints, chris.keller@active-endpoints.com

* Ed Cobb, BEA, ecobb@bea.com

* Dave Ings, IBM, ings@ca.ibm.com

* Matthias Kloppmann, IBM, matthias-kloppmann@de.ibm.com

* Dieter Koenig, IBM, dieterkoenig@de.ibm.com

* Frank Leymann, IBM, Frank.Leymann@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de

* Jeff Mischkinsky, Oracle, jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com

* Gerhard Pfau, IBM, GPFAU@de.ibm.com

* Karsten Ploesser, SAP, karsten.ploesser@sap.com

* Alan Rickayzen, SAP, alan.rickayzen@sap.com

* Michael Rowley, BEA, mrowley@bea.com

* Ron Ten-Hove, SUN, ronald.ten-hove@Sun.COM

* Ivana Trickovic, SAP, ivana.trickovic@sap.com

* Claus von Riegen, SAP, claus.von.riegen@sap.com

* Vicki Shipkowitz, SAP, vicki.shipkowitz@sap.com

* Prasad Yendluri, Software AG, Prasad.Yendluri@SoftwareAG.com

2e. TC Convener

The TC Convener is Jeff Mischkinsky, Oracle,

jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com.

2f. Member Section Affiliation

The TC does not intend to affiliate with an OASIS Member Section.

2g. Anticipated Contributions

It is expected that Active Endpoints, Adobe, BEA, IBM, Oracle, and

SAP AG will contribute the BPEL4People v1 and WS-HumanTask v1

specifications [1-6] and any other related documents such as errata,

and that such documents will be the starting point contribution for

initiating the work of this TC.

References

[1] http://www.active-endpoints.com/active-bpel-for-people.htm

[2] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/bpel4people_overview.html

[3] http://dev2dev.bea.com/arch2arch/

[4]

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/specification/ws-bpel4

people/

[5] http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/standards/bpel4people/

[6] https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpel4people

Internet Scale Computing is like, so 5 minutes ago

I remember when there were less than 5 hits on Google for this term.  

A quick inquiry last week returned well over 5,000 results (with our draft ISC paper near the top). 

 

On another, unrelated topic - quick thanks to Jeremy (again!) for adding me to SYS-CON's featured industry blogs.

New year, new job

The title says it all.   I'll be doing more hands-on type of work so expect me to blog on a more frequent basis.  

Stay tuned.

2008 Predictions

Welcome to 2008!   What better way to start a new year than making  some predictions that might or might not happen this year.  

This post was inspired by Jeremy Geelan who asked me to write up some 2008 predictions a couple of months ago (much like I did last year).  Alas, life got in the way (as it tends to do) and I missed the deadline for responding.    Below are the predictions for 2008 that I neglected to send to Jeremy.   Enjoy.

--

Noted SF author William Gibson has been quoted as saying "The future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet". This implies that a select group of people may already know what the future holds. Are we that group? I leave that to you to decide.

Predicting the future is actually quite easy as long as your predictions do not have to be correct. Most industry pundits predict the future by following some well-known methodologies:

• Predict events that will originate beyond your expected lifetime – this way no one can confront you if you are wrong (e.g. global warming catastrophes).
• Predict events that are already a foregone conclusion by making up new terms for existing concepts (Service Oriented Acronym Factory patterns).
• Make new predictions each year without reviewing the accuracy of any past predictions. Example: “By 2009 computers will disappear and displays will be written directly onto our retinas by devices in our eyeglasses and contact lenses.” (pundit name withheld to avoid embarrassment)

Rather than blather on about how to make predictions allow me to actually make some. Without further delay, here are my Top Ten Predictions for 2008:

• REST interest grows as capability gaps are filled: REST will continue to gain popularity for broadly consumable, Internet Scale services. Lightweight frameworks will add value to REST by adding support for structured data and eventing, making difficult tasks like pub/sub, discovery and state alignment easier to implement.
• Devices, not laptops: A device inflection point emerges for portability, power, storage and Internet access. Phones and other lightweight devices begin to replace laptops for highly mobile users.
• Model-driven everything: Tools will mature enabling models and metadata repositories to be reliably used across the entire solutions lifecycle: architecting, designing, building, testing, deploying and operations.
• Internet Scale Solution Operating Systems emerge: Internet Scale Computing will continue to gain attention as products and services in this space continue to mature. Server operating systems with native virtualization support will make it easier to provision and manage resources based upon demand.
• Real-time Forecasting in the datacenter: The tracking and storage of datacenter events enables the discovery of usage patterns. Usage patterns enables opportunistic forecasting of resource demand. Opportunistic forecasting enables the provisioning of resources in anticipation of expected demand, based upon the associated usage patterns. (For example, an online retailer may define a time-based usage pattern which enables additional resources to be allocated in advance of popular shopping holidays like Christmas.) Usage patterns can also enable the gradual de-allocation of resources as service demands degrade. Opportunistic forecasting enables higher datacenter utilization rates since resources are proactively managed based upon both real-time and historical usage data.
• Virtualization demystifies and lowers the risks associated with multi-tenancy: Many so-called “architecture astronauts” have been writing about multi-tenancy as if it’s something shiny and new. Multi-tenancy has been around in one form or another for decades. Today multi-tenancy is typically accomplished using one of three possible approaches:
  • Separation with dedicated hardware resources (sometimes called “hybrid tenancy”).
  • Virtualization uses software to create environments with logical boundaries.
  • Design the solution to be multi-tenant aware. This is by far the most difficult to design, build and maintain. Surprisingly this option tends to be the one that gets the most attention. Multi-tenancy isn’t rocket science and shouldn’t require you to expose your applications and organization to needless complexity or risk. As hardware costs continue to fall expect to see more organizations opt for a virtualization approach to enable multi-tenancy capabilities, thereby avoiding the complexities , costs and risks associated with a “multi-tenant aware” solution
• Aggregator wars: As long as I mentioned architecture astronauts, the “long tail” is another concept they seem to enjoy talking about. One of the facts about the “long tail” that many people seem to overlook is that the big money in the Long Tail is in the aggregation. In other words, if you are not the aggregator of “long tail “ services (be they content, apps or something else) you’re unlikely to make much money.
• Human interactions in BPM: Specifications like WS-HumanTask and Human Interaction Management will begin to be supported by a variety of tools and platforms.
• Acronym overload: Buzzword bingo (which includes versioning things that shouldn’t be versioned) will continue to be a disturbing trend in 2008.
• Pundit Predictions: Starting in November 2008 we’ll see articles predicting things for 2009. Most of these pundits will avoid revisiting their past predictions (you can check my 2007 predictions here).

Here's an extra prediction just for the heck of it:

• Green everything: Is "Green" worth it?   “Green” is trendy, it makes products cost more and it makes you feel good about yourself – all while having no impact on the global environment whatsoever (positive or negative).   Despite these facts "Green" is big business (it generates lots of "other" green) so expect to see more and more products released as special (more expensive) "green" versions in 2008.

Update:  The Java Developer's Journal with the 2008 predictions just came out (a PDF version is available for download).

Yet Another Update: Jeremy was still kind enough to run this over at SYS-CON even though I was so horribly late in getting it to him.

BPEL4People and WS-HumanTask to OASIS

The BPEL4People and WS-HumanTask specs are headed to OASIS, resulting in a new BPEL4People Technical Committee (TC) - expect to see an announcement and call for participation soon.  The TC will focus on defining human interactions (“human tasks”) as part of a WS-BPEL process, enabling these definitions to be exposed as web services.

Note that BPEL4People is not a new version of WS-BPEL.   BPEL4People extends the WS-BPEL spec using WS-HumanTask.   You can review either of these specs in their current form here:

• BPEL4People (BPEL Extension) (PDF)
• WS-HumanTask (PDF)