Spaghetti Noodles over Bisi Bele Baath?!

I live with a vivid memory of that day when I visited the JXTA.org on April 25 2001 when it was launched with much fanfare as an Open Source project which was an outcome of $10 Mn acquisition of Gene Kan's Infrasearch by Sun. If Bill Joy liked something I am sure there were many who would like it, then! JXTA was one such thing.

While trying to build something over Jini along with my first IT Guru Tarun Bhargava, JXTA seemed very exciting and promising when we thought of the possibilities in a socially, geographically, economically and politically realigning world.

With an intermittent journey with JXTA at a distant land of Rishi Munis where the tech culture is entirely different and survives on the latest indent from Uncle Sam, I was sure an alien in my own land. And when I started my venture I also elevated my position to be an untouchable in a predominantly service based industry barring a few players who worked with products.

Little did I know last year, when I suggested 2 names "Masala Dosa" and "Bisi Bele Baath" in response to a call for naming upcoming JXTA releases, that the spaghetti noodles (aka Samooha) cooked by the team at Zudha would serve as topping over Bisi Bele Baath release of JXTA in March 2006! No doubt this world is uniting socially and technically more than ever before thanks to the internet though philosophically and politically it may be quite the opposite. The West is sliding Eastwards and the East is yearning for Western looks :-)

The journey of around 5 years of my P2P IT train seems to be reaching its first junction and expects major changes in the structure of the train. The "Yatra" is gaining more momentum than ever for making it convenient for more trains to be started to carry the payload of Indian Innovation to counter the global warming! I am optimistic that Samooha will clear the smoke screen to show the reality of Indian Innovation through efforts at grassroots level. It may not be the best yet it may be good enough to begin with a new paradigm.

JXTA is quicksilver even now and I am convinced that it would catalyze this world to do many exciting things to connect each other more than ever. And that would be a lasting tribute to Late Gene Kan whom I give full credits for his foresight at his playful age of 25.

The 5 years of JXTA seemed like 5 minutes to me.