Sometime this quarter, Intalio will release two brand new editions for our open source Business Process Platform, the Business Edition and the Developer Edition. The former is the result of our acquisition of Process Square (Germany), while the later originated from an idea proposed by Matthieu Riou, one of the lead developers for Apache ODE, a project lead by Intalio. Here are more details about it.
Intalio|BPP Developer Edition turns the BPM picture upside down. Instead of adopting a process-centric view of the world, it promotes a code-centric approach, and uses the BPEL engine as a mere utility for executing long-running transactions, which can be invoked from any piece of code, written in virtually any language.
Much like a relational database can be used from any programming language through a database driver to store and retrieve information, the process engine can be used from any programming language through a process driver to orchestrate services and assign workflow tasks to end users.
Intalio|BPP Developer Edition is a radical departure from the Zero Code approach that we’ve been advocating all along. Instead of trying to replace every single bit of code by advanced graphical metaphors and model-driven artifacts, we’re celebrating code and trying to leverage its unmatched expressive power in creative ways. That being said, this departure should not be considered as a change of mind: the Zero Code approach is very much alive and kicking for the Community Edition and Enterprise Edition, which are aimed at Process Analysts. But for software developers who make a living writing code, the Developer Edition is the way to go.
Intalio|BPP Developer Edition is made of five main components:
- The Apache ODE BPEL engine that executes the BPEL code
- The SimPEL compiler that translates SimPEL code into BPEL
- The SimPEL runtime that provides bindings to multiple programming languages
- The Singleshot workflow framework that supports human task management
- The SimPEL IDE that facilitates the development of SimPEL code when using Eclipse
The entire Developer Edition will be released under a combination of open source licenses that are most appropriate for each component, while remaining compatible with each other. After some internal discussions, here is what we settled on:
- Apache ODE: Apache License, Version 2.0 (ASL v2)
- SimPEL compiler and runtime: GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPL v3)
- Singleshot: GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPL v3)
- SimPEL IDE: Eclipse Public License Version 1 (EPL v1)
The SimPEL and Singleshot projects are now hosted at intalio.github.com, which is where most of the open source projects lead by Intalio will be managed, at the exception of Apache ODE (Apache) and the BPMN Modeler (Eclipse). As we make more acquisitions of open source companies, we expect most projects to go to oss.intalio.com, which will provide an umbrella for all our open source projects and links to intalio.github.com where the code will actually be hosted.
The Developer Edition will be tightly integrated with the Community Edition and Enterprise Edition in several ways: First, processes and services developed with one can be reused from the other. Second, the Community Edition and Enterprise Edition will leverage SimPEL’s bindings to programming languages (Java, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, etc.) in order to support scripting in processes, be it for building specific connectors, creating custom process activities, or developing advanced data mapping functions. Last but not least, all four editions (including the Business Edition) will share the very same process engine underneath (Intalio|Server).
From a roadmap standpoint, Apache ODE is already available, SimPEL and Singleshot will be released later this quarter (Early Adopter Release), and the SimPEL IDE will be released in Q2 or Q3 this year, once the SimPEL language itself got a chance to settle down a bit. While the entire Developer Edition is open source, Intalio will provide commercial support services for it, as well as OEM licensing options. Please drop us a line if you’d like more details about these programs. And it goes without saying that we’re very much welcoming contributions from the open source community.
