JBoss Inc. Monday announced a new open-source workflow engine, JBoss jBPM 2.0, as well as the hire of the technologys creator.
Atlanta-based JBoss said it has hired Tom Baeyens, lead developer of the Java Business Process Management platform, now known as JBoss jBPM. JBoss jBPM will join “Tomcat” and “Hibernate” as a key part of the JBoss Middleware Platform, company officials said. Baeyens calls jBPM a workflow management system.
JBoss officials said the companys new BPM engine can scale to complex workflow patterns and uses the jBPM Process Definition Language, which supports a variety of standards such as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), BPEL for Java, Business Process Modeling Language, ebXML (Electronic Business XML), ebXML Business Process Specification Schema, Web Service Choreography Interface and the XML Processing Description Language.
The JBoss jBPM middleware solution is available under the LGPL (Lesser GNU General Public License), JBoss said.
Meanwhile, Baeyens, based in Turnhout, Belgium, will continue to work on enhancing JBoss jBPM and will report to Scott Stark, chief technology officer at JBoss.
In an interview with eWEEK, Baeyens said: “I joined JBoss because it is the most fertile environment for my open source project. They have the knowledge and stable environment to run a profitable business on open source software. I was trying to set up my own business around the jBPM project. Quite successfully, but still its a bumpy road. The professionalism of the JBoss team is something I could never achieve by myself.”
“On the other hand, the JBoss developer team is by far the most talented team I have ever seen. So it is a great place to work. Together with the other projects, JBoss jBPM will be one of the components of the complete enterprise middleware stack under the umbrella of JBoss Inc., the home of professional open source,” he added.
Over the next year, JBoss will continue to evolve the JBoss jBPM platform to make it a true workflow management system featuring native BPEL support, a new graphical workflow designer that integrates with the Eclipse open-source development platform, and a new process manager with Web-based workflow and integration with the JBoss Nukes portal framework, company officials said.
Editors Note: This story was updated to include comments from an interview with Mr. Baeyens.
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