BEA tries open-source tack with Workshop Java tool

BEA Systems Inc. plans to release the source code for part of its WebLogic Workshop Java development environment, a move that it hopes will spur wider use of the product and eventually steer more customers toward its WebLogic family of Java server software, the company said Wednesday.

Workshop aims to make it easier for Java programmers to build enterprise applications by mimicking some of the visual, drag and drop features in Microsoft Corp.'s popular Visual Studio tools. Rivals such as IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are also creating tools to make Java easier to use, something viewed as important for the technology's continued success.

Under a project called Beehive, BEA plans by the middle of the year to release part of the underlying code for Workshop under a BSD open-source license. It will certify the code for use with the Apache Software Foundation's Tomcat Web server, which means developers will be able to use Workshop to build applications that run on Tomcat, said Scott Dietzen , BEA's chief technology officer. Currently, applications created in Workshop run only on BEA's WebLogic products.

Dietzen positioned the move as good for the Java community as a whole. Opening a development framework like Workshop to more developers should help make Java more competitive with Microsoft Corp.'s .Net technology, he said. Open-source developers will be able to create other versions of Workshop if they choose to for commercial application servers from the likes of IBM and Oracle Corp., he said.

The move is also designed to steer more customers toward BEA's own WebLogic family of server products at a time when the company's market share has been declining. Developers often begin pilot projects using Tomcat, and BEA hopes that by giving those developers the option to use Workshop, their familiarity with the product will lead them to migrate to BEA's fee-based products when it comes time to deploy their applications, Dietzen said.

"The bottom line is, Beehive is intended to accelerate the proliferation of Java, particularly for Web and services-oriented-architecture applications, by simplifying development. We believe this is going to expand the Java market overall and attract more users to BEA," he said.

BEA hasn't decided yet who will host the open-source project, Dietzen said.

Shawn Willett, a principal analyst with Current Analysis Inc., said the move is a clever one on the part of BEA to try to establish broader support for the Workshop framework while skirting the Java Community Process (JCP), the established process for setting Java standards. However, the company is also taking a "calculated risk," he said.

"The danger is that Apache's open-source servers ... could benefit from this to the extent it cuts into WebLogic sales," Willett said. In other words, Beehive could potentially lead more developers to Tomcat -- as well as the Apache Software Foundation's Geronimo application server -- without leading them back to BEA's own products, he said.

Still, he said, Project Beehive should help BEA get its software into the hands of more developers than if it was available only to WebLogic users, and BEA apparently views that risk as an acceptable one, he said.

BEA's Dietzen said the JCP takes up to 18 months to approve new Java standards, and promoting its Workshop developer framework through the open-source community is a faster way to establish broader support for the technology.