Restlet CEO Jérôme Louvel announced today that Guillaume Laforge, project lead of the Groovy programming language, has joined the API software maker.
InfoQ spoke to Laforge about Restlet, Groovy, and his new responsibilities.
InfQ: Can you tell us about Restlet's products and business model?
Laforge: Restlet focuses on three key projects and products. Historically, the first one is the Restlet Framework, which is an Open Source framework dedicated to creating and consuming REST APIs. Then we have the Restlet Studio, which allows developers to craft their APIs and their contracts in an online web IDE. And last but not least, there is APISpark, which is basically a Platform as a Service dedicated to web APIs (hosting, proxying, managing, etc.) The business model of the company is centered around the latter product, as it's an online service developers and business users can use to work with their APIs, and pay for as they go, depending on their usage patterns.
InfoQ: Will they be picking up Groovy as well?
Laforge: There are several areas where I see that Groovy could be put to good use in the APISpark platform and Restlet Studio. It's still a bit too early to reveal any plans, of course, but we're definitely thinking about integrating Groovy, and so Restlet is happy for me to keep my Groovy hat on!
InfoQ: What will be your main responsibilities now?
Laforge: My main activities at Restlet will be centered around our Restlet products and projects, on product strategy and developer advocacy.
InfoQ: Will you actually be creating API's or will you be creating API creation software?
Laforge: As part of creating API creation / hosting / managing software, you also need to eat your own dog food, so I'll also be crafting APIs of my own, and the products themselves are actually built on that same foundation! I also have some personal projects I'd like to build on such an API platform, so stay tuned.
InfoQ: What will happen to the Groovy/Grails ecosystem?
Laforge: Both projects will continue to be developed as usual. It's not because one vendor decides to stop funding the developers working on those projects that the projects die! On the contrary, I think it makes the projects even stronger, as we're now working towards making the projects more resilient to such events. We're looking forward to have the Groovy project join a foundation — the final decision should be imminent. Grails 3 is going to be released in the coming weeks, and Groovy 2.4 and beyond are still going strong. We also have a very lively ecosystem, with several highly useful and productive frameworks, libraries and tools. And the support we've received from the community has really been superb and very positive.
InfoQ: Can you give us any insight into current efforts to finding a new home for Groovy?
Laforge: We're working on two fronts: 1) make the project join an Open Source foundation (like the Eclipse foundation, the Apache foundation, or the Software Conservancy), and 2) we are also looking for companies interested in hiring the Groovy and Grails teams to continue developing both projects at full speed.
InfoQ: Does Groovy have a future without Guillaume Laforge?
Laforge: First of all, I'm not leaving so I'll still be around, and secondly, of course, even if I were to be gone, there are several active committers working on the project that are able to continue to raise Groovy to new heights! I'm of course very confident for the future of Groovy and Grails, and both the foundation move for Groovy and a new sponsor hiring the key developers should show great signs of confidence for the future of both projects.
InfoQ: Best of luck to you Guillaume.
Laforge: Thanks a lot! It's going to be an interesting new page, and also an interesting place to put some concrete Groovy into action :-)
Mr. Laforge also shared his views on how to make APIs "Groovy-er" in a blog piece today.