LIR-OSGi: Extends OSGi to support distributed and heterogeneous ubiquitous computing system

As an emerging portable service platform, OSGi is now taking a more and more important role in Ubiquitous Computing environment. As a module management framework, OSGi provides the functions of dynamic loading and unloading software modules at runtime. But its use is limited because it is centralized and single programming language supported. In this paper we present LIR-OSGi, an extended framework of OSGi, which is designed to add the distribution and programming language independence to OSGi. Meanwhile it is easy to use for developers because of the transparence of service invocation and automation of distribution. Not like OSGi which can be applied only on the Java platform, LIR-OSGi makes programs which may be written in different programming languages be able to call each other transparently so that it can be applied in many different platforms such as DotNet Framework and so on. This brings much convenience to the program development in a distributed and heterogeneous environment.