The OSGi Architecture

The OSGi technology is a set of specifications that define a dynamic component system for Java. These specifications enable a development model where applications are (dynamically) composed of many different (reusable) components. The OSGi specifications enable components to hide their implementations from other components while communicating through services, which are objects that are specifically shared between components. This surprisingly simple model has far reaching effects for almost any aspect of the software development process.

Though components have been on the horizon for a long time, so far they failed to make good on their promises. OSGi is the first technology that actually succeeded with a component system that is solving many real problems in software development. Adopters of OSGi technology see significantly reduced complexity in almost all aspects of development. Code is easier to write and test, reuse is increased, build systems become significantly simpler, deployment is more manageable, bugs are detected early, and the runtime provides an enormous insight into what is running. Most important, it works as is testified by the wide adoption and use in popular applications like Eclipse and Spring. 

see :

http://www.osgi.org/About/WhatIsOSGi