Open Source BPMN 2.0 Will Produce More Features In Proprietary Products

By now, we know what happens when an Open Source Software (OSS) is created in an arena full of proprietary vendors. First of all because of the free availability, the technology is more used and more knowledge about the technology is spread to the masses.

We're already seeing a big momentum around BPMN 2.0. And us bringing a BPMN 2.0 OSS offering will help spread the knowledge and adoption beyond the critical mass.

For other OSS technologies like ESB's or appservers this happened late in the game, long after proprietary vendors had settled themselves. Typically the advent of an OSS offering started making the technology a commodity. Proprietary vendors are then pushed to produce more features on top of what is commodity in order to keep making money.

So it's going to be interesting to see what happens if we're one of the first native BPMN 2.0 solutions.

If you're interested in Business Process Management (BPM), then this new development is really important. Both OSS and proprietary vendors are embracing a single technology for BPM. That is a huge step forward from the past where previously all the pure-play BPM solutions were based on different concepts and proprietary languages. Going forward, the language choice will be easy.

One technology can be used by both non technical business people and developers. And when OSS enters the BPMN 2.0 space, you'll have more choices of products. On the one hand, the initial treshold to get started gets lower with OSS for the masses being freely available. And on the other hand you'll see more features in the proprietary offerings if you want to pay for it.

Alive And Kicking

You might have seen the Open letter to the jBPM community explaining that me and Joram step down from the jBPM project. We just want to let you know that we're alive and kicking. We're building a new BPM platform that's architected for new IT requirements. It will be Apache licensed and it will run BPMN 2.0 natively. Exciting times ahead!

That's all we can share at this point. Keep posted for more information.