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Attendees at LinuxWorld this week in San Francisco are getting a good look at open source integration backed by the big guys.
IBM announced support services for ASF (Apache Software Foundation) Geronimo application server, the idea being that big companies will have a greater comfort level adopting an open source application server if its backed by the likes of IBM for support services.
Dubbed, not surprisingly, IBM Support for Apache Geronimo, the offering provides two levels of support for developers—one based solely on Geronimos open source code, the other with additional functionality from Gluecode Software, a company IBM acquired in May.
Gluecode, based on the core open source technology from the Geronimo application server, pre-integrates services for building Java applications.
“Well provide support services around Geronimo, so if you want to download source code from Geronimo, we will support you,” said Chet Kapoor, vice president of Gluecode with IBM Software Group, in Somers, N.Y. “You can embed or build applications on top of that.”
As part of its LinuxWorld announcements, IBM also released some of its Gluecode software to the ASF Geronimo project. The code, called Gluecode Management Console, is essentially a user interface that developers can utilize to manage, monitor and configure Geronimo components.
The Geronimo community has accepted the console, according to IBM officials.
This is not IBMs first foray into the world of open source infrastructure. The companys WebSphere middleware incorporates Apaches open source HTTP server; in 2004 IBM donated its Cloudscape code to the Apache Derby relational database project.
Then theres the Gluecode acquisition.
“Gluecode is one of IBMs strategies in open-source infrastructure,” said Kapoor. “Well expand as it makes sense, when we think that customers have accepted it and they want other open source services on other open source technologies.”
