IBM's programming and scripting language, REXX, may have achieved a unique range of supported platforms, with success on everything from the Commodore Amiga to OS/2 to IBM mainframes. Over the years, REXX gained object-oriented features, and turned into Object Rexx, with programming interfaces to DB2, C, and C++ applications.

A few weeks ago, IBM quietly released Object Rexx to the open source community. RexxLA — the REXX Language Association — targeting the first release of Open Object REXX for early 2005.

Object Rexx is commonly used as a glue to connect applications, or as a driver for an application suite. For example, Lee Peedin, VP of Safe Data, Inc. says, "Data on over 80% of the pork production in the US is reported or disseminated via Object Rexx programs." Using both Internet and telephony applications, the data collected ranges from feed orders, to production numbers, to mortality counts, to animal movements, according to Peedin.

Object REXX is also used in pursuits as diverse as insurance companies and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.

However, as an independent product, Object REXX had a small revenue stream for IBM. That revenue came primarily from Windows licenses, because the languages was given away on most IBM platforms. Says Chip Davis, RexxLA president, "[IBM] saw that transferring their intellectual property to the open source community would open it up to a larger pool of developers and supporters than they could justify based on its revenue. To everyone involved, it is a win-win solution."

Continues Davis, "We in the Rexx community feel it is worth our efforts to maintain and enhance the language because it embodies all the advantages of "Classic" Rexx within an [object-oriented] paradigm: power, ease of use, flexibility, conceptual purity, minimal limitations, etc."

The "ooRexx" project has been established on SourceForge, says Davis, and the code and documentation are being converted from IBM internal formats to open standard formats. While IBM is involved in the transfer, it does not intend to be formally involved in the project. A number of current and former IBMers have signed on to help with the project on their own time, however, including Rick McGuire, the primary architect and author of Object Rexx. IBM Fellow Mike Cowlishaw, who created the REXX language, "is very interested in seeing Open Object Rexx succeed," says Davis. "His expertise and counsel are immediately available should we need it."