IBM to give away Rational tools to Eclipse

BANGALORE: IBM has announced giving away a part of Rational software process platform to the Eclipse Foundation, reaffirming its support for the open source platform. Said an online report.

In the giveaways are the meta model for describing development processes, the tools for customizing and creating processes, and a portion of the Rational Unified Process (RUP).

According to Roger Oberg, vice president of IBM's Rational group, by taking this step IBM has given control of Rational's meta model, tooling and basic processes to the open source community, and hopes to add value to the open source model.

Will not IBM loose out on revenues by taking this step? "Benefits exceed potential downside," informed Oberg. Opening up these processes will give developers the freedom to use them, without getting locked in, and IBM will gain by providing support and tools. Confident about IBM's vast experience and knowledge, Oberg opines that they will continue making money by the way of content enhancements and providing services.

The Rational tools have been submitted to The Eclipse Foundation, which will review, accept or modify them.