E-business technology provider Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) has launched a collaborative open source development site: POSSE, the Progress Open Source Software Exchange, at www.possenet.org.
Possenet.org is up and running and offering collaborative access to the latest release, Version 9.1, of its Application Development Environment (ADE) source code. Developers can deploy this ADE source code for any current e-business applications they are working on or sign up to participate in the development of specifications for future releases of the ADE.
“We believe that Progress Software, our development community and end users will reap the benefits of possenet.org, as it allows Progress developers to participate fully in developments, enhancements, customizations and modifications of their ADE, and share ‘best practices’ of application development with each other,” said Pete Sliwkowski, vice president, Progress Products.
Possenet.org is managed by CollabNet, which provides its SourceCast platform for developers around the world to easily collaborate on the possenet.org source code. SourceCast is an integrated web-based environment that offers simple, powerful and intuitive access to management tools including: code versioning, source code browsing, automatic change notification, mailing lists, issue-tracking and web administration.
“The unique working relationship that Progress Software enjoys with its development community conveniently pre-disposes this move to the open source model,” said James Barry, VP product and strategy, CollabNet. “It has been very easy to move this interaction between Progress Software and its developers onto our SourceCast platform. The possenet.org environment allows developers to use an open source approach and collaborate on building the next generation of e-business applications.”
Progress Software is making the source code available for its Version 9.1B 4GL-based application development tools, including AppBuilder, which supports development of GUI (Graphical User Interface); WebSpeed Workshop for development of Internet transaction processing applications; SmartObjects, components of the ADM, an advanced object-oriented programming framework; Internet Component Framework (ICF), which supports complex component-based business logic; Data Dictionary, which allows the creation and maintenance of database definitions; TranMan (translation manager), which facilitates the translation of applications into other languages; and Results, an end-user reporting tool.
“The powerful and flexible Progress 4GL is unique among fourth generation languages in that it is actually used to implement our application development tools, such as WebSpeed Workshop, AppBuilder and the ICF (Internet Component Framework). Progress developers are already experts in the language used to build their development environment, and are fully empowered to take advantage of a collaborative open source support environment such as that offered by CollabNet,” Sliwkowski said.
These application development tools are also commercially available in the Progress ProVision Plus product. Progress Software will continue to distribute the ProVision Plus toolset commercially under warranty and with full technical support.
Possenet.org provides the 4GL source code, the definition of 4GL-based file formats and the definition of language-independent application programming interfaces (APIs). In addition, possenet.org establishes the necessary facilities to make all of the possenet.org source code available under the Possenet Public License 1.0.
