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As the EclipseCon conference of Eclipse development platform users opens, Red Hat announced a power move that brings a set of mature, Eclipse-based developer tools for building service-oriented architecture and Web 2.0 applications to Red Hats integrated platform, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Middleware.
Red Hat, of Raleigh, NC, announced that Exadel, of Concord, Calif., has pledged to open-source its development tools under the JBoss umbrella, giving JBoss the set of developer tools the Red Hat division needed to better compete in the marketplace.
Exadel will open-source all of its products, including Exadel Studio Pro and RichFaces, as well as consolidate its Ajax4jsf project under JBoss.org. And Red Hat will work jointly with Exadel to drive development of the projects and their integration with JBoss platform technologies such as JBoss Seam, said Bryan Che, product manager for developers at Red Hat.
Moreover, Hibernate and JBoss Seam founder Gavin King will take a prominent role in leading the direction of the new projects within JBoss.org. Red Hat announced the deal on March 5. EclipseCon is being held in Santa Clara, Calif., March 5-8.
Exadel Studio Pro provides a Web development environment that enables developers to work with multiple frameworks within a single environment, the company said. RichFaces and Ajax4jsf enable developers to build rich Internet and Web 2.0 applications.
By combining Exadels developer tools with JBoss Enterprise Middleware, Red Hat offers a complete development and deployment platform that enables programmers to assemble SOA components and Web 2.0 applications with less coding while also increasing productivity, accelerating time to market, and reducing development and run-time errors, Che said.
RichFaces and Ajax4jsf are available now as JBoss RichFaces and JBoss Ajax4jsf, respectively, on JBoss.org under the LGPL license, Che said.
Red Hat is currently working to open-source Exadel Studio Pro as Red Hat Developer Studio under a GPL-based license, he added. Availability for Red Hat Developer Studio is planned for the first half of this year.
“Red Hat Developer Studio will be open-sourced this summer, and well launch a Red Hat developer program this summer” around the re-badged Exadel technology, Che said.
“We want more people to do new development on Red Hat,” Che said. “That was one of the big motivations of our JBoss acquisition. … And we want to help developers with creating applications with a strong fleet of tools.
“Combining what we have today is quite a unique combination,” Che said. “I see it as an end-to-end solution—components, code and tools.”
“We want to be a bigger portion of the stack,” said Fima Katz, chief executive of Exadel.
Sacha Labourey, chief technology officer of Red Hats JBoss division, said in a statement, “Exadels software contribution is a great asset to the open-source community and rounds out our JBoss Enterprise Middleware platform with field-proven developer tools that enhance productivity and simplify development on JBoss.”
Che said one thing Red Hat is considering is an integrated bundle of Red Hat Developer Studio with a run-time platform and components and libraries, including Hibernate and Seam.
“With its active JBoss.org community, complementary projects, established brand and ability to bring to market enterprise open-source software, Red Hat has what it takes to help Exadel move its development tools forward,” said Katz in a statement. “Integration with JBoss Enterprise Middleware will only bolster the strength of our tools.”