'We would like to start developing applications the way Linux is built, to turn the business objects into open source projects', ARTech's vice-president and director, Nicolás Jodal, said at the XI GeneXus Users' Meeting last September.
The business objects released by ARTech are parts of a knowledge base that allow someone who starts developing an application, having a part of the programming road done.
Now, the proposal of sharing the knowledge is taken to the whole GeneXus community through GXOpen, (http://listserv.artech.com.uy/gxopen/hmain.asp), a site on the Internet where you can exchange GeneXus developments, or those ones related to GeneXus, with other users of the community.
GXOpen site is still at development and testing stage and it counts on 105 users registered and 32 projects in different stages (development, testing, etc.) and 'evolutions'. The site itself is one of these projects because it can be downloaded and modified. At GXOpen you can find from a utility that allows performing a certain operation up to a complete knowledge base that allows solving a larger problem. For example, you can download a banners' server or an application for accesses' control.
There have already been 220 downloads at this site, Jodal informed. The idea of developing projects in Open Source mode reached maturity in the Operative Systems' development, he stated. If we could develop operative systems, why not developing applications? 'We have to learn to make applications this way in GeneXus community, and not only learn, but also invent a lot of things in order to do it correctly', he outlined.
As in every 'open source' the collaboration and ideas from the developers' community that surrounds it are fundamental because they are the ones that provide that site's content and they are the ones that determine the idea's success or failure. A project that grows owing to people's participation.
'We are looking for collaboration among us, as we are a virtual community of applications' developers, and this is what we want to be', Jodal concluded during the XI GeneXus Users' Meeting.
Jodal projects a future where the GeneXus programmer goes to the GXOpen site to find what has already been done, before starting developing as well as before creating something new, and that he collaborates by making his idea public. 'It is an opportunity for creating and developing GeneXus online', Jodal stated.