realMethods Open Sources its J2EE Framework

realMethods announces it is now part of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), making its J2EE Framework available as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

realMethods is determined to do whatever it takes to become the J2EE framework standard and support the efforts of its 10s of thousands of repeat downloaders Many of our downloaders are periodic repeat downloaders, leading us to conclude they are building applications with the evaluation version. We are finally convinced that a well run open source project can promote software reliability and quality by supporting independent peer review and more rapid evolution of the source code" said Steven Randolph, CTO of realMethods. Community based open source will strongly encourage user feedback to further improve the Framework, providing greater design pattern and J2EE coverage. However, the flaw with most open source projects is the lack of support and accountability. This project is backed by realMethods Professional Services where companies only pay for support, training, consulting, and supporting tools if they need it. In the current IT spending climate, paying for licenses isnt attractive, but paying a reasonable cost for useful knowledge is."

Being part of the OSI, and bound by the GPL, users of the realMethods Framework open source project are also bound by the GPL. This is done to further promote the openness of the Framework. However, many applications to be built using realMethods will not be able to be bound by the restrictions of an open source license like the GPL. For such scenarios, realMethods also offers a low-cost commercial license.

The realMethods Framework open source project is available at SourceForge.net, and has already been released.