In Open Source Software (OSS), "Exchange" is the Pasword of the Day - Open Source Software Up the Stack

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December 06, 2007
In Open Source Software (OSS), "Exchange" is the Pasword of the Day

“Exchange” was the password for the day December 6, 2007 in the software industry and open source software (OSS) naturally plays a part.

SourceForge, the large OSS publishing house, said it would announce the opening of an exchange it calls an OSS marketplace. And Jitterbit announced an exchange that it calls its Trading Post, aimed more specifically at integration software. Of course Jitterbit hopes that means a lot of integration software optimized for its Jitterbit integration server engine, which is available OSS, but the company is not restricting the Trading Post to its products or by OSS terms and conditions.

Both efforts in a way are taking on Red Hat Exchange (RHX), which offers services and support for about 15 other well known OSS projects. SourceForge and Jitterbit want to go wider to address many smaller projects.

Jitterbit says its Trading Post is like a marketplace for partners, which include many systems integrators (Sis). In integration at least they have found that even if you offer the tool, domain expertise is as important. Its Trading Post is a place to share what it calls Jitterpacks (xml-based “integrations”), Jitter plug-ins (more like conventional adapters and connectors) and other integration techniques and access to integration services (not in the computer science sense of the word). In other words an SI might simply describe/demonstrate its ability to integrate particular types of software but not OSS the code and therefore require the user to subscribe to or contract with the SI. Others might put the code right out there in typical OSS fashion, more like the Sourceforge.net site that sits under the Sourceforge marketplace. Those that take that tack would more than likely be end users but it’s really matter of all comers. A selection of Jitterbit users, customers, and providers have already published their solutions on the marketplace including NASA, The State of Iowa, and Continental Airlines.

The Jitterbit Trading Post in particular is not a competitor with RHX because it is specific to integration. And as described in the RHX link above, Red Hat could stand to take Jitterbits' "all comers" approach and not limit itself to OSS products that run on top of Red Hat Linux. Jitterbit itself was launched in May 2006; we’ll have more say about it in an upcoming review of OSS integration server/business process management/enterprise application integration products as described here.