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IBM demonstrated its commitment to open source and the Linux platform by highlighting developer successes at the companys annual DeveloperWorksLive conference last week in New Orleans.
IBM also announced several initiatives involving the company-sponsored Eclipse open-source, Java-based application development platform.
“Were seeing an increase in momentum in developers using Linux and writing for Linux,” said Adam Jollans, Linux strategy manager for the IBM Software Group, in Armonk, N.Y. “Both in terms of developers writing applications for Linux and others writing applications for Windows but developing on Linux.”
Jollans said more than 5,000 Linux applications have been registered on IBMs systems.
Warren Postma, a developer from Toronto, said Linux represents a key area for IBM. “Developers are always the alpha geeks,” Postma said. “Wherever they go today, the market goes tomorrow. When Microsoft [Corp.] introduced Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and NT, they paid particular attention to developers. IBM didnt. OS/2 died. It is the developer mind share Microsoft has lost to Linux and open source.”
At the show, IBM introduced a packaged hardware and software solution available through partners.
IBM Integrated Platform Express will enable resellers, ISVs and other partners to deliver business applications on top of an integrated hardware and software offering consisting of IBMs WebSphere Application Server and DB2 database and the IBM eServer x225, x235 or x345 systems, officials said.
IBM also announced Version 2.1 of the Eclipse platform. A new feature in Eclipse 2.1 is support for Apple Computer Inc.s Mac OS.
Other new features include workbench navigation enhancements, user-set key bindings, new support for The Apache Software Foundations Apache Ant build tool and flexible project layouts. The Eclipse editor and debugger have also been improved, officials said.
Jollans said there have been 7 million Eclipse downloads. The Eclipse consortium consists of 34 members, and more than 260 Eclipse-oriented projects have been recognized by Eclipse.org, officials said.
Meanwhile, Eclipse.org announced that Hyades, a project to automate software quality that is being led by New York-based Scapa Technologies Inc., will release an open-source implementation of the U2TP (Unified Modeling Language 2 Test Profile) specification, which was submitted to the Object Management Group last month. U2TP is scheduled for OMG approval as a standard in June.