Novell is contributing code and resources to bolster the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System and to work on individual JBoss open-source projects, including the JBoss portal project.

JBoss Inc. took another step in its quest to win share from larger rivals when the so-called professional open-source company signed a deal to expand its relationship with Novell Inc. this week.

At the Novell BrainShare 2005 conference in Salt Lake City on Monday, Atlanta-based JBoss and Novell, of Waltham, Mass., announced that Novell is contributing code and resources to bolster JEMS (JBoss Enterprise Middleware System) and to work on individual JBoss open-source projects, including the JBoss portal project, said Bob Bickel, vice president of strategy and corporate development at JBoss.

"Novell is committing to JEMS as their strategy for an application platform," Bickel said. "They're putting engineering resources behind the JBoss open-source projects in JEMS, particularly the JBoss portal project. And that moves the functionality ahead for us."

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Primarily Novell will contribute its WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portlets) standard-based portlet container and portlet library to help advance the JBoss Portal, a component of the JEMS stack, Bickel said.

"Novell is donating the WSRP infrastructure and 75 portlets—their entire portlet library," Bickel said. The Novell portlet technology is being donated to the open-source community.

However, Novell also will be integrating its identity management software with JEMS, but that is not going open source, Bickel said.

In addition, Novell will contribute to the emerging JBoss integration strategy, Bickel said. He noted that there is nothing specific to announce there, except that JBoss is planning to "move in that direction over time."

Sources said JBoss is in discussion with Iona Technologies plc. to deliver an ESB (enterprise service bus) based on Iona's core technology.

"The way the JBoss Portal works is it has security and a simple single sign-on, and as companies need a single identity management platform … that's what Novell brings," Bickel said.

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Meanwhile, Novell officials said the company plans to ship some of the JEMS open-source components in the next version of the company's Extend application suite due out next year.

In a statement, Brad Stoddard, IT manager for the state of Michigan said, "The state of Michigan is an existing user of Novell's Identity Management and service oriented architecture development capabilities, and we're actively pursuing our open source strategy. This announcement from Novell and JBoss is definitely the kind of collaboration with open source and strategic vendors that we are looking for. We are very interested in this type of strategy that can deliver such a comprehensive application platform based on open source."

This article was first published on eweek.com.

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