The Open Mainframe Project (OMP), an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, continues to see rapid growth with a new project , Polycephaly, and the addition of new members.
The project (formally zJenkins) is based on IBM IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB) using Groovy script to build z/OS applications with Jenkins and Git, and three academic institutions from China: Beijing Institute of Technology, South China University of Technology, and Xidian University.
According to OMP, the new project and members solidify Open Mainframe Project's mission to educate and train the next generation of developers and engineers.
Polycephaly is intended to be a key technology in expanding access to mainframes. The name comes from the Greek word meaning "a condition of having more than one head," because the project marries two different development life cycle methodologies: distributed and z/OS. Polycephaly requires minimal z/OS system programming, and provides flexible development paths and options, moving from linear to non-linear development. It removes the need for separate development paths for distributed and z/OS workloads. Developers can develop on any platform, store to Git and Jenkins to deploy. Plus it has all the benefits of the 1000+ Jenkins plugins. The project is actively looking for individuals or companies to assist in extending and moving the project forward.
"As lifelong mainframers begin to retire, it is our job to make sure that we equip students, developers and engineers with the training and resources they need to continue innovating mainframes and enterprise applications," said John Mertic, director of program management for the Linux Foundation and Open Mainframe Project. "We are particularly ecstatic to collaborate with these universities from China as our geographical footprint expands."
Hosted by The Linux Foundation, the OMP is comprised of more than 30 business and academic organizations that collaborate on vendor-neutral open source projects with the mission of building community and adoption of open source on the mainframe. The OMP strives to build an inclusive community through investment in open source projects and programs, career development, and events that provide opportunities for the mainframe community to collaborate and create sustainability.
For more information, go to www.openmainframeproject.org.