A Patent on JSFUnit

... or more precisely, I/we patented one of the key technologies JSFUnit uses. About the same time I was starting the JSFUnit project, Red Hat's lawyers announced a push to get us to file software patents. I did so reluctantly because I think that in the end, software patents are a game that only the lawyers can win. But Red Hat has a good strategy when it comes to patents that I think ultimately benefits everyone. Read below for more on that.

So it took over three years to get it done. You can view the patent here if you want the gory details.


What does the patent say?
Basically, it just says that we keep the FacesContext alive after the request is done. Without JSFUnit, the JSF Lifecycle would throw it away. That lets us do assertions on the state of the system after each JSF request. If you've been using JSFUnit then you probably know all about that. It's what makes JSFUnit unique among testing tools.


What does the patent mean for JSFUnit users?
Nothing. The software is still open source. We're not looking to make money off of the patent.


Why did Red Hat want to patent this in the first place? Doesn't this go against Red Hat's philosophy of openness and freedom?
Yes and no. Red Hat doesn't really like software patents either. But we see them as a necessary evil until some laws are changed. As I understand it, the Red Hat Patent Promise says that anyone can use our patents for free as long as you don't file a patent case against us.

So long and thanks for all the fish,

Stan

*Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney. The above is my own understanding of this stuff. I'm not even qualified to write this disclaimer.

JSFUnit 1.2 Goes Final

We just put out a new release of JSFUnit. This time besides bug fixes, we have few new features to talk about:

• JSF Static Analysis Returns - A big thank-you goes to our newest committer, Alexander Jesse. He has updated some of the old JSF static analysis code and made it really easy to test your JSF configuration for common errors. Some of the old static analysis stuff is still there but his ConfigFilesTestSuite looks awesome. Click here to check out the documentation.
• New API for working with RichTree components - Of all components, developers using JSFUnit seem to have the most difficulty with RichTree. That's understandable because it is a very complex component. In JSFUnit 1.2.0 the RichFacesClient has new methods for working with RichTree. You can read about that here.
• Easier Configuration for Servlet 3.0 - If you are lucky enough to be using a Servlet 3.0 container such as JBoss AS6, you no longer need to change your web.xml. JSFUnit will add the needed servlets and filters at deploy time.
• JSFUnit Console - This is one of the cooler new features, but it also requires Servlet 3.0. JSFUnit now provides a browser-based console for launching your tests. You don't have to do anything extra. You just need to deploy your app and type http://locahost/myjsfapp/jsfunit into the browser. You can read all about it here.

A note about upgrading. If you are upgrading from JSFUnit 1.1.0 you will need to upgrade some of your jars that you package with the WAR. They are:

• htmlunit-2.7.jar
• htmlunit-core-js-2.7.jar
• nekohtml-1.9.14.jar
• commons-codec-1.4.jar

Also, there have been a few bug fixes in HtmlUnit for RichFaces. So if you run into trouble you can find an HtmlUnit 2.8 snapshot from the latest build that contains the fixes.

As always, thanks to everyone who contributed to this release with patches and feedback.

So long and thanks for all the fish,

Stan