NEWS: IBM Free Source helps Linux

IBM puts software tools out in open

NEW YORK, Nov. 5 — International Business Machines Corp. on Monday said that it would put into the public domain $40 million worth of software that can be used to create applications for conducting business on the Internet.

THE SOFTWARE, which is code-named Eclipse, will be open-source, meaning that its code is freely available, like the Linux operating system, a much smaller rival to Microsoft Corp.’s dominant Windows operating system. IBM said this move will help support Linux by enabling Linux-based developers to work freely with Eclipse.
The software is used in the area of Web Services, which are Web-based applications that interact with other applications to automate business transactions.
IBM also said that it introduced several new software tools based on Eclipse that work with its WebSphere middleware and that are focused on Web Services. Middleware is software that connects separate applications.