SpringSource Stirs Open Source into the VMware Mix

NEW ORLEANS -- Speaking about what the future holds for SpringSource, Rod Johnson, founder of SpringSource and general manager of the SpringSource division of VMware, quipped that SpringSource's future is directly tied to its latest acquisition: VMware.

Of course Johnson was joking. VMware actually acquired SpringSource in August. but the implication Johnson was promoting was that SpringSource will be driving a lot of innovation within VMware, particularly in terms of open source technology and enhanced support for more and more open source.

During his opening keynote speech at the SpringSource SpringOne 2GX developer conference here, Johnson said the SpringSource/VMware marriage was based on a core set of strong values from two like-minded, engineering-led organizations that focus on innovation and simplification.

"VMware values engineering," Johnson said. "With SpringSource, VMware is embracing the open-source community. VMware really cares about developer communities and about open source," he added, noting that SpringSource's commitment to open source will increase under VMware.

"It's a very good thing for Spring," Johnson said. "But there are many good things that haven't happened yet, but which are possible."

Indeed, Johnson said his plan is to "take the SpringSource middleware business forward and we'll also be building the Enterprise Java Cloud platform," using several SpringSource technologies including Hyperic, Spring, Grails and more. "The Enterprise Java Cloud is something we've already started to build with Cloud Foundry," he added. SpringSource acquired Cloud Foundry in August 2009.

Meanwhile, Johnson emphasized that SpringSource and its technology is created "for developers by developers. We like code. We don't apologize for writing code -- we think writing code is a very important thing to do. But we want to make it easier to work with code,"

And the company has achieved that. Johnson showed figures that indicated that each new version of the Spring Framework has reduced the number of lines of code in Spring applications. And Spring products simplify the application lifecycle of building, running and managing applications, he added.

"We're not just about the framework, but the entire lifecycle through to cloud deployment," Johnson said. "We go from the IDE [integrated development environment] to the data center to the cloud."

Johnson then launched into a discussion of some of the core SpringSource technologies, including Spring 3.0, which was announced at the conference. In addition, Johnson and some of the various Spring project leaders demonstrated technologies such as the new SpringSource tc Server Developer Edition, which features the Spring Insight Dashboard that has an application health screen that gives developers a 10,000 foot view of their application. SpringSource engineers also demonstrated Spring BlazeDS, Spring Integration, Grails and other technology.

Johnson also touted the value of the SpringSource Tool Suite (STS), which will reach version 2.2 on Oct. 21. "For many Spring developers STS is likely the only download you'll need," he said.

The SpringSource SpringOne 2GX conference runs October 19-22 in New Orleans.