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Today, I’d like to point you to the TIBCO General Interface (GI) rich internet application (RIA) toolkit. The pointer is based on a session I had with TIBCO recently that was primarily about their upcoming BPM Business Studio and recently announced ActiveMatrix foundation software. But as always I followed the open source software (OSS) angle while I was talking to TIBCO.

TIBCO made its Ajax-based RIA development environment open source in the fall of 2006 with release 3.2. There was a little buzz about the move at the time but basically TIBCO is not really into the OSS culture yet so a reminder is worth while. With the recent 3.3 release, the code is out of a beta stage and is now what I would call truly open source [that is, GI has been available under Berkeley Systems Distribution (BSD) terms and conditions for six months but that did not mean much until recently because you could not actually get your hands on the source code]. The latest release primarily extends capabilities to Firefox 2.0 and Explorer 7.0. These release notes include all the other key features rolled out in versions 3.1 and 3.2.

Increasingly, these “Talking with…” sessions, where I recount some conversations with OSS suppliers, will be headlined with a slash mark as in TIBCO/General Interface above and Iona/LogicBlaze on April 17. I illustrate in my OSS scorecard the close relationship between almost all successful and useful OSS and some critical corporate backer. More and more in 2007 these connections are becoming legal (acquisitions or whatever) as well as just a matter of critical corporate backing. That trend can probably be traced to IBM’s 2005 acquisition of Gluecode (the leading proponent of the Apache Geronimo application server) two years ago next month but it looks like the trend will hit high speed from here on out.

Don’t panic when you see your favorite OSS come under some “impure” corporate umbrella; it’s necessary to the overall success of the movement. Most of your “impure” corporate bosses simply need to be sure that they can go to an IBM, an Iona, or a TIBCO for support before they bet critical business processes automation on OSS.

(By the way, TIBCO Business Studio is freeware although not OSS. It is also available from TIBCO’s web site.)

Posted by dennisb in OSS Development |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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