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IBM Jazz Edges Closer To Open Source

Posted by kdawson on from the collaboration-wants-to-be-free dept.

hhavensteincw writes "IBM is molding its Jazz technology, which helps software development teams collaborate, in the image of its popular Eclipse open source community. IBM said that today's move to open access to its Jazz.net portal to anyone to peruse its code, access bug lists, etc. puts it on the path to completely open-source the Jazz technology."

76 comments

  1. Wake me up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...when Jazz vertices and faces are also close to Open Source.

  2. Not much information in article... see videos by compumike · · Score: 4, Informative

    I love when I can actually RTFA and still have no idea what the product is. So I found these videos of Jazz which should be helpful. But this is one of those "platform" things where they aren't actually selling anything... But my interpretation is that they're essentially trying to put together a code repository (ala Subversion) with Bugtraq with mailing list with instant message.

    --
    Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

    1. Re:Not much information in article... see videos by Compuser · · Score: 1

      So is it like a DIY Sourceforge kit?

    2. Re:Not much information in article... see videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Somewhat, but not quite. This isn't them specifically growing out of the sourceforge.net/open source community, I think this is them trying to go for the "Behind The Firewall" versions of Sourceforge.

      Rational's been getting its ass kicked by SourceForge Enterprise Edition and Collabnet Enterprise Edition (in addition to JIRA and GForge) for a while now. While the two big players, SourceForge Enterprise Edition (used to be owned by VA, er, SourceForge.com) and CollabNet Enterprise Edition were bringing the Rational and Star Offices to SFEE and CEE, I think IBM woke up and realized that there are a lot of new things.

      CollabNet bought SourceForge Enterprise Edition in April, and it seems like that company is going to go down in flames. If you add on top of SFEE and CEE, they have some Virtualization software that isn't quite hotel management software, and some reporting software that you'd be better off using Jasper or Crystal reports for. Yes, there are eclipse plugins for SFEE and CEE, but, this is taking it completely a step further -- bringing the product lifecycle inside of the IDE, from conceptualization to User stories to coding to defect tracking and releasing software. It also looks like IBM's solved the ability to cluster, something CEE and SFEE haven't been able to do.

      It looks promising, to say the least.

  3. Re:What's with all the trolls lately? by RuBLed · · Score: 0

    I miss the "love the ponies" troll.. please return.. we are sorry little pony...

  4. whatcouldpossiblygoright by Pennidren · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    9 out of 10 taggers agree, /. articles are simply omens of our impending doom

    I guess no news really is good news to most of us?

    1. Re:whatcouldpossiblygoright by Pennidren · · Score: 1

      nice, i was modded flamebait, but notice that the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag has subsequently been removed

  5. Did you know.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 2, Funny

    That the word "Jazz" comes from creole sexual slang "come jazz me up".

    It is also past tense form of "jizz".

    How times change...

    --
    1. Re:Did you know.... by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      That's such an awesome coincidence because if there's anybody that loves jizz more than Pudge, it would be me.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    2. Re:Did you know.... by Arnonymous+Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      I thought this was a troll to, until I did a quick search and found out they were correct.

      'Jazz' is not a bad word now, but almost certainly is of extremely low origin, referring to copulation before it was applied to music, dancing, and nonsense (i.e., all that Jazz). The vulgar word was in general currency in dance halls thirty years or more ago" (Clay Smith, Etude 9/24). "According to Raven I. McDavid Sr. of Greenville, S.C., the 1919 announcement of the first 'Jazz band' to play in Columbia, where he was then serving in the state legislature, inspired feelings of terror among the local Baptists such as what might have been aroused by a personal appearance of Yahweh. Until that time 'Jazz' had never been heard in the Palmetto States except as a verb meaning to copulate" (H. L. Mencken, The American Language Raven I. McDavid Jr. 1963). "She never stepped out of line once in all the years we been teamed up. I can't sell her on jazzing the chump now" (William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley 1946).

      http://www.apassion4jazz.net/etymology.html

      Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(word)#Etymology
    3. Re:Did you know.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still: irrelevant + incendiary == Troll

    4. Re:Did you know.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  6. What is Jazz by MrCopilot · · Score: 4, Informative
    Everyone is asking what it is. When did we get so lazy?

    What is Jazz?

    Developing software in a team is much like playing an instrument in a band. Both require a balance of collaboration and virtuosity. Jazz defines a vision for the way products can integrate to support this kind of collaborative work, and a technology platform to deliver on this vision.

    Jazz is an IBM Rational project to build a scalable, extensible team collaboration platform for integrating work across the phases of the development lifecycle. We believe Jazz will help teams build software more effectively while making the software development activity more productive and enjoyable.

    Jazz is a technology platform, not a product. Product offerings that are built on the Jazz platform will be able to leverage a rich set of capabilities for team-based software development and delivery. Rational Team Concert Express will be the first of a planned family of Rational Team Concert offerings built on Jazz technology.

    http://jazz.net/pub/index.jsp

    Most of us haven't heard of it because it has been in a closed private pilot program, now open to all of us.

    --
    OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
    1. Re:What is Jazz by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is what I love about Slashdot.

      People are lazy and don't read the article (hey, this is Slashdot - that's how it has always been).

      People are not too lazy to post "what the fuck is this about?" even though they don't read it.

      Other people complain about people not reading the article.

      Those same people then copy and paste or explain what it is, while complaining that people are too lazy to read the article.

      Then, OTHER people mod-up the people who are complaining about and enabling the lazy people to continue being more lazy by posting the info directly in a post for them.

      That's why this is home. :)

    2. Re:What is Jazz by clacke · · Score: 1

      So ... what is it then?

    3. Re:What is Jazz by cyphercell · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's why this is home. :)

      Yes, it's the fine art of the executive summary, but you aren't supposed to tell anyone.

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    4. Re:What is Jazz by eggnoglatte · · Score: 1, Troll

      Well I read that, but what the heck does it MEAN?

      "Jazz is a technology platform, not a product"

      Wow. What insight. This should get the Pulizer for "best piece in managerspeak".

    5. Re:What is Jazz by MrCopilot · · Score: 1
      Actually, I agree that TFA was uninformative.

      I was lamenting the laziness of people not finding out more information. Instead kvetching about it. Takes several more clicks than a search.

      Welcome Home Friend.

      --
      OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
    6. Re:What is Jazz by famebait · · Score: 2, Funny

      Everyone is asking what it is. When did we get so lazy?

      Looooong ago. This led to a lot of people missing out on really
      interesting infoprmation. But then Slashdot was invented, to
      help us lazy humans and make it easier to handle the flow
      of information, by giving us hints about which current articles
      might be interesting to us, in a single easy-to-scan place, and
      get this, _before_ we read them.
      BRILLIANT!

      Some posters though, fail to grasp this fundamental point of
      slashdot in its entirety. What they think it's for, and what they
      seek to accomplish by posting without this insight is really
      beyond my comprehension, but they clearly do exist in copious
      numbers.

      But thank you for fixing it with a proper summary. Now I know that 'jazz'
      is a jumble of meaningless buzzwords and marketspeak.

      --
      sudo ergo sum
    7. Re:What is Jazz by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      Most of us haven't heard of it because it has been in a closed private pilot program


      Microsoft tried that too, but they even information about their top-secret cyborg chair-chucker program leaked out ;)
    8. Re:What is Jazz by kryten · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they could bring out a monthly magazine to help explain it all and keep us up to date with the process.
      A "Jazz Mag" developers could read when they had a few quiet moments alone.

    9. Re:What is Jazz by epine · · Score: 1

      Most of us haven't heard of it because it has been in a closed private pilot program, now open to all of us. I was hoping that most of us hadn't heard of this because we were sensibly protecting our brain cells from those paragraphs of bafflegab that constitute IBM's parting of the polyester curtain on their newest 1958 Buick with the inimitable "Fashion-Aire Dynastar grille".

      Speaking of blurry unveilings in the era of monochromatic one-piece swimwear, what's the least amount of cling wrap required to dress a trade-show bunny so as not to get her arrested?
    10. Re:What is Jazz by SiggyTheViking · · Score: 1

      If you have to ask, you'll never know.

    11. Re:What is Jazz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yours should get the "Pulizer" for not letting ignorance get in the way of posting. As a platform, it is in a sense similar to an OS for collaboration tools.

    12. Re:What is Jazz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes! And you know what else......... ahh forget it.

    13. Re:What is Jazz by richieb · · Score: 2, Funny
      ... a scalable, extensible team collaboration platform for integrating work across the phases of the development lifecycle.

      I read the article. I still don't know what the hell it is...

      --
      ...richie - It is a good day to code.
    14. Re:What is Jazz by PinkPanther · · Score: 1

      The difference is that Microsoft is a marketing firm that employs some programmers. ;-)

      --
      It's a simple matter of complex programming.
    15. Re:What is Jazz by eison · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not lazy - it's just that the explanation doesn't explain. That description could describe everything from Sharepoint to Wikipedia to SourceForge to kitchen refrigerator magnets, and as such it doesn't actually tell me anything useful, like wtf is Jazz?

      --
      is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
    16. Re:What is Jazz by mweather · · Score: 1

      And then there's Maude!

  7. I love it when a plan comes together... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He's on the jazz man, on the jazz...

  8. Wall street is waking up by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's good to see that Wall Street is starting to take notice of the value of open source. IBM's stock was up over 5 points Monday on this latest news of their ever-increasing commitment to open source software rather than the closed source models of the 20th century.

    --
    Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
    1. Re:Wall street is waking up by Benjamin+T+Miller · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, IBM's stock went up 5 points on Monday because their expected earnings per share were $2.80, 20 cents higher than the predictions of analysts. It has absolutely nothing to do with this "latest news of their ever-increasing commitment to open source software." While you and I might care about businesses and open source, Wall Street has exactly one thing in mind: profit, and higher than expected profit caused their stock to go up.

    2. Re:Wall street is waking up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the stock increase had more to do with IBM's positive earnings report, than IBM's commitment to open source. I mean IBM's good report gave investors reason to believe that tech in general is doing well, hence HP, Intel and Microsoft all rose on the news. And Microsoft isn't exactly embracing open source.

    3. Re:Wall street is waking up by Alphager · · Score: 1

      And IBM succeded in getting the Cognos-owners to accept the buyout.

    4. Re:Wall street is waking up by nacturation · · Score: 1

      Surely you're trolling. Their latest gain was because they made a lot of money and the market responded. If IBM sent out a press release saying they're freely handing out source code to all their software, I bet their stock would tank.

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    5. Re:Wall street is waking up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the economic conditions in the USA (people are talking openly about recession, international central banks recently had to release cash to help control the US housing debt, combined personal and state debt estimated to be over $50 trillion), that Cognos is dependent on the Fortune 500 in the USA to survive, and that Cognos's competitors are giants such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP/Business Objects, I don't believe it was hard to persuade the executives of Cognos to sell.

    6. Re:Wall street is waking up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No. It's because I farted 17.5 times that day.

      Nobody really knows why any stock goes up or down. People make up stories that seem to explain the reason, but they are nothing more than speculation.

      For example the earnings report and buyout news may have triggered a small rise, which lead to a feeding frenzy which lead to programmed selling which damped the increase from the frenzy. Or it may be related to my propensity to break wind.

      To say that certain factors may have lead to an increase in price is reasonable, to claim direct causation is fallacy.

  9. Re:What's with all the trolls lately? by bar-agent · · Score: 4, Funny

    OMG PONIES!!!

    --
    i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
  10. Jazz being tested at U of Arizona CS/CE by shoegoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I recently received an email from the Computer Science advisor at the University of Arizona regarding an independent study class where this software is being tested. Here is the email:

    ECE/C SC 399/399H/499/499H

    Jan 14, 2008 - Feb 15, 2008

    24-Hour Knowledge Factory in Software Development Research Experiment

    Course Summary:

    The purpose of this research experiment is to collect data on how effective the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory process is when used with software development, and collect feedback from students on their interactions with the process. Students taking this course would complete a CS C 335-style project during the first four weeks of the Spring 2008 semester. Students would participate in one of two ways:

    Case 1: Students would be part of a 3-person team completing the project using the simulated 24-Hour Knowledge Factory process. This would require students to select 2 days per week (3 days apart) to complete approximately 4 hours of project work. Each team member would then save their files at the end of the day and the next student would continue working on the next day. All project communication must be done through the message board prototype provided. All development will be completed using Jazz, a set of collaborative tools built on top of eclipse, which will be available on select machines in GS 228.

    Case 2: Students would be a control group, each student working independently. In order to mimic the situations of the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory groups, students would still only perform 8 hours of project work per week, but this time could be on any two days that the student chooses, (in 4 hour increments each day). There will be a much fewer number of openings for this situation, no more than the number of participating complete groups.

    Course Requirements:

    Each student will be required to attend an orientation session on the Monday prior to classes starting. Also, each student will need to complete daily progress reports twice a week and a weekly summary report each week. Students must also commit to work 2 days per week for 4 hours (or a more flexible 8 hours per week schedule for case 2) on days that can be negotiated before course enrollment.

    Grades will be based on timely and thorough completion of progress reports and not on project progress. Instead, the team from case 1 and the student from case 2 that completes the most assigned tasks or creates the best product will be awarded gift certificates to a local restaurant in the amount of $20 per person.

    Prerequisites:

    Students must have completed C SC 227 (or equivalent Java programming courses).

    It is preferred that students have completed C SC 335 or ECE 373 (or equivalent Java programming courses, specifically with experience in Java Swing development).

    Note: Some students without the second requirement may be selected to participate on teams with students that do meet that requirement. At most one student not meeting this requirement will be placed on a team.


    My brother has inquired about the details of this expirement as he may be interested in participating. The experiment administrator told him that the work must be completed on the selected computers in the CS labs as those boxes would be the only place the software is available.
  11. The only thing I could think of... by MadJo · · Score: 0

    The only thing I could think of when I read this article, was: "IBM is on the jazz again."

    --
    80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
  12. what Jazz is about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I saw a demo once. In a nutshell, Jazz is to team performance what Eclipse is to personal performance, it is a platform for collaboration tools. I think it started as an internal project of eclipse developers to better support the Eclipse development process. You can define and enforce your software process and good coding practices. A software process can be a heavyweight pocess a la RUP or a lightweight like XP or any custom process like the Eclipse Process. There are development process building blocks like plans, tasks, roles, versions, (nightly) builds, milestones, releases, bugs, etc.. It supports distributed (multi site) development. It has an embededd chat capablity that is process aware (e.g. drag and drop of references to bug reports, builds and code deltas). There is also a "dashboard" web application with project status screens and bug tracking.

    1. Re:what Jazz is about by Kaptain+Kruton · · Score: 1

      In a nutshell, Jazz is to team performance what Eclipse is to personal performance... In other words, it is cool in theory, but is actually far more trouble than its worth.
    2. Re:what Jazz is about by JustPutt2 · · Score: 1

      Forgive me, if I am wrong. IMHO was the first intelligent posting on this article.

  13. Released on... by aproposofwhat · · Score: 2, Funny
    What I want to know is...

    is IBM Jazz released on the Big Blue Note label?

    --
    One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  14. Well, guess what... by JamesP · · Score: 1

    Given the tripe that "Rational" products are, this makes my curiosity about this ZERO.

    There are several good collaboration tools out there, none made by "Rational"

    --
    how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    1. Re:Well, guess what... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Jazz isn't made by the Rational people. It's made by many of the same people responsible for Eclipse. I used to work with some of them, and I've seen bits and pieces of Jazz as it was under early development.

      It looks very promising, especially for large organizations that currently cobble together a suite of collaborative tools by hand. The main promise of it is integration between all those different tools, which will be tighter and smoother than you can get when you use separate tools from separate vendors and try to glue them together into a workable process yourself.

  15. Pokeyman? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On Slashdot, nobody knows what the jazz is all about, y'see!

  16. That sucks by kaiwai · · Score: 1

    It's GPL; I'm going to create my own BSDL version called "Free Jazz" - beautiful chaos allowing free improvisation :)

  17. Wrong by ThirdPrize · · Score: 1

    Jazz is the sound of a blues quartet being pushed down the stairs.

    --
    I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
  18. Ah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since you appear to know what a frosty piss taste like, I am guessing that you are a window's developer.

  19. Re:What's with all the trolls lately? by PinkPanther · · Score: 1

    I like turtles!

    --
    It's a simple matter of complex programming.
  20. Not GPL. It's CPL. by ShinmaWa · · Score: 1

    It's GPL I realize you were setting up a joke, but in reality its far more likely it will be CPL/EPL, not GPL. Don't forget IBM's motivations here. They may be opening the Jazz platform, but IBM will be selling products built on top of Jazz platform they created -- just like IBM sells a bazillion products built on top of the Eclipse platform they created (technically, Jazz is built on top of Eclipse too).
    --
    The /. Effect: Thousands of users simultaneously accessing a site to not read its content.
  21. Yawn... teh "Opun Sarce" panacea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh joy. Another poorly written app is being dumped into the FOSS domain in a lame attempt to get some fool to try fixing the bugs (See: Netscape or Java).

    I'd ask why the FOSS community doesn't just come up with their own solutions... but that's like asking a committee to solve all the world's problems. Been there and done that for over 200 years, it doesn't prove viable.

    As much as people hate them, you need a monopolistic tyrant like Microsoft or Apple to get anything accomplished. Think of change as dragging a carpet- the bigger the carpet gets, the bigger the person pulling it has to be in order to create any change.

    But then you have companies like Sun, IBM, etc living on past glories and thinking it will just magically "be their turn" again, rather than going out and making something people want. And a lot of that is because their culture is one with lots of people involved, they probably have a ratio of like 4 vice presidents per engineer, etc. And let's not even talk about the goofiness of the upper management, the golden/platinum parachutes, etc. There's no incentive to succeed... so they don't. It's not hard to figure out.

    And that's why FOSS fails so hard. There's no incentive for success. You aren't going to have "the next Bill Gates" be some guy who writes FOSS, unless he's capable of billing a few billions of hours per year. Even the best Lunix consultant can't double-dip his billable hours THAT much (although it's definitely not for lack of trying).

    So, sadly, all FOSS is good for is trying to polish the turds big corporate failures dump (both literally and figuratively) on their laps.

  22. Warning: TOS Bomb! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I just wanted to sign up, but then I read the Terms of Usage, and there's quite a hitch: IBM can do anything with your source code - even use it in closed source products or sell it to somebody else

    Quote, with own emphasis:


    Contributory Licenses

    By sending IBM or this Web site (including but not limited to by uploading, submitting or otherwise making available or contributing to IBM or this Web site) any information or material, you grant IBM an unrestricted, worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to use, make, have made, reproduce, display, perform, publish, upload, post, modify, create derivative works from, transmit, distribute, sell, offer for sale and sublicense or otherwise transfer those materials or information or their modifications, and to authorize third parties to do any, some or all of the foregoing including, but not limited to, sublicensing others to do any some or all of the foregoing indefinitely. You represent and warrant that to your knowledge, you have sufficient rights in those materials or information to grant these rights and licenses. You also agree that IBM and its sub-licensees as described above are free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you send us for any purpose.

    Further, to the extent that you have made your identity known by posting, uploading, submitting otherwise using the Jazz.net Web site as intended, you give permission to IBM to publicly disclose your name or otherwise publicize the fact that you submitted materials or other information to us, and IBM may do so without the need of further notice to you.

    Notwithstanding any other terms in this agreement, IBM is under no obligation to use, post or upload any contribution you make to this Web site or otherwise, and IBM may remove any posting or upload you make at IBM's sole discretion.