A New Community for z/OS and Linux on Z Developers from the Open Mainframe Project

Celebrating two decades of supporting open source approaches to technology, the Linux Foundation (News - Alert) continues to grow in 2020, and recently announced the establishment of a new developer community from The Open Mainframe Project (OMP), which is intended to serve as a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and open source in a mainframe computing environment.

OMP’s mission is to make open source on the Mainframe the standard for enterprise class systems and applications, as well as eliminating barriers to open source adoption on the mainframe and building an active and supportive community. With Platinum members like ADP, Broadcom (News - Alert), IBM, Rocket and SUSE, OMP has become a powerhouse in is innovation and commercialization with more freedom and creative collaboration.

Since launch in 2015, Open Mainframe Project has experienced record momentum. Last year alone, it doubled the amount of projects under its umbrella and added 10 new members from different parts of the globe.

OMP’s recently launched project, Ambitus, is a new community of developers who want to better understand how their existing open source environment can be implemented and operated on a mainframe, joins 8 other OMP projects Ambitus joins 8 other OMP projects including Zowe, which launched its first virtual hackathon on February 23.

“Open Mainframe Project has made significant progress raising awareness for mainframe modernization and educating the next generation of developers,” said John Mertic, Director of Program Management for the Linux Foundation and Open Mainframe Project. “But there is still hesitation for open source on the mainframe. Ambitus was created specifically to help developers and users understand how their environment works on z/OS and Linux on Z.”

Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe is a framework that provides interoperability and uses the latest web technologies for products and solutions from multiple vendors. It helps make the z/OS environment more “cloud-like” and aims to improve integration in hybrid cloud environments. Launched just last year, the Zowe community has grown strong with almost 200 committers, more than 17,000 commits and more than 1,650 developers exchanging information, best practices and questions on Slack.

After April 5, Open Mainframe Project will host a webinar where each team can present their project in front of a panel of judges. OMP will recognize leading entries by inviting attendees to the inaugural Open Mainframe Summit at no cost to them.

The Inaugural Open Mainframe Summit, which welcomes longtime OMP members SUSE and Vicom (News - Alert) Infinity as Gold Sponsors, will bring together different levels of mainframers and technologists to share best practices, hot topics, use cases and demos.

OMP has launched its Call for Proposals for the event and invites all technologists, developers and thought leaders to submit abstracts on a wide variety of topics such as Use Cases, AI, Hybrid Cloud, Analytics, Modern DevOps and Open Source (News - Alert). The deadline to submit is May 29, 2020. Visit the website to learn more: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-mainframe-summit/program/cfp/#overview