October 1st, 2007
Curl to open source libraries, webkit as Adobe, Microsoft target RIA
Adobe is not the only tools vendor planning to make available its rich Internet application (RIA) development environment to the open source community.
Curl, a Cambridge, Mass. MIT spinoff known for its innovative programming language and IDE for Web 2.0 desktops will announce its plunge into open source waters in the next few weeks, said Curl’s Chief strategy officer, Jnan Dash.
“We are open sourcing parts of Curl. Not the Curl run-time environment, but, like Adobe, we are one sourcing client libraries and the web service developers’ kit,” he said, noting that the company likes its chances competing against Adobe and Microsoft in the RIA market since many businesses have not pushed hard on Web 2.0 front ends yet.
“The key challenge to this is building a community,” Dash said, noting that releasing parts of its technology into the open source world will speed up its evolution and integration with other platforms.
Curl’s platform is designed and optimized for client side RIA development. Adobe’s forthcoming AIR and Microsoft’s coming Silverlight platforms are aimed for similar purposes.
Curl also plans to announce an upgrade of its RIA platform — wich supports Linux, Windows and mac — that offers a better Windows look and feel. And the company is busy working on integration with the open source Eclipse IDE, now due for completion sometime in the first quarter of 2008, Curl’s Dash added.
Curl was founded in 1998 and first launched its platform in 2002. The ISV, now owned by a Japanese firm, has 300 enterprise customers worldwide, mostly in Japan and Korea. Curl launched its platform in the U.S. in April.
Adobe, for its part, announced plans earlier this year to open source its Flex SDK and documentation under the Mozilla license. Adobe also contributed its ActionScript Virtual Machine soure code for its Flash player to the Mozilla Foundation and released the webkit HTML engine for its forthcoming Integrated Run-time (AIR) platform to the comunity.
AIR, due for release early next year, will compete head on with Curl’s RIA platform.
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for almost two decades. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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