OW2 is an independent
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
international
consortium
A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...
dedicated to developing
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
code infrastructure for
middleware
Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...
information systems. OW2 federates
IT vendors and users, universities, and research centers from
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
,
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
, and
the Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
, representing IT professionals.
History
OW2 was founded in 2007 as an independent organization to foster the
ObjectWeb
OW2 is an independent non-profit international consortium dedicated to developing open-source software code infrastructure for middleware information systems. OW2 federates IT vendors and users, universities, and research centers from Europe, As ...
code base of
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
middleware
Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...
. ObjectWeb was a joint project launched in 2002 by
INRIA
The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics.
It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...
,
Bull
A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions,
includin ...
, and
France Telecom
Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...
; in 2005
INRIA
The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics.
It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...
signed an agreement with OrientWare, a joint project between
Peking University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (now
Beihang University
Beihang University, previously known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (), abbreviated as BUAA or Beihang ( zh, c=北航, p=), is a national public research university located in Beijing, China, specializing in engineering, t ...
),
National University of Defense Technology
The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT; ) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Changsha, Hunan, China. Founded in 1953 as the People's Liberation Army Military Academy of Engineering, ...
, CVIC Software Engineering Co., Ltd, and the Institute of Software at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...
. All became founding members of OW2 along with Engineering,
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become ass ...
, and
Thales Group
Thales Group () is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' ...
.
Activities
Projects
OW2 hosts circa 100 open-source projects. Projects make up the OW2 code base and are foundation of all OW2 activities. Projects can be submitted into the OW2 code base after meeting some minimum requirements and applying. At this point, a Project is considered to be in "Incubation," the first of OW2's defined lifecycle stages. Upon gaining code contributors, growing, and meeting rigorous requirements, a project can apply for "mature" status. The application is then reviewed by the OW2 Technology Council and granted mature status or kept in incubation. If a project stops evolving and updating, it can then be moved to the third lifecycle stage, "Archive," where it is no longer active but can use OW2's infrastructure services.
Hosting
In 2008, only a year after its founding, OW2 began hosting its projects via
Concurrent Versions System
Concurrent Versions System (CVS, also known as the Concurrent Versioning System) is a revision control system originally developed by Dick Grune in July 1986.
CVS operates as a front end to RCS, an earlier system which operates on single fil ...
(CVS) and
Apache Subversion
Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name ''svn'') is a software versioning and revision control system distributed as open source under the Apache License. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and hist ...
(SVN) using
GForge
GForge is a commercial service originally based on the Alexandria software behind SourceForge, a web-based project management and collaboration system which was licensed under the GPL. Open source versions of the GForge code were released from 2 ...
.
Later, support for CVS was disabled and hosting via
Git
Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data inte ...
using
Gitorious
Gitorious was a free and open source web application for hosting collaborative free and open-source software development projects using Git revision control. Although it was freely available to be downloaded and installed, it was written primar ...
began. In 2018, only a decade after it had begun using it, OW2 decommissioned its use of GForge and SVN in lieu of Git, after having migrated to using
GitLab
GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package which can develop, secure, and operate software. The open source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Dutch developer S ...
.
OW2con
OW2con is an annual conference for the OW2 community, organized since 2009.
References
Further reading
Building a cloud ecosystem with open source, May 2013Après la BI, le Cloud et l'internet des objets, OW2 se penche sur la sécurité, Novembre 2014 (French)Pourquoi la France et l'Europe doivent devenir contributeurs et plus seulement consommateurs, Novembre 2015, (French)OW2 Consortium: Building Beyond Europe, June 2017
External links
* {{Official website