In late September, IBM announced that it would be open-sourcing the code for WebSphere Liberty, an application server intended to facilitate the development of Java apps and microservices. Liberty is intended to allow developers to quickly develop and deploy applications in a variety of environments while functioning seamlessly with other solutions. IBM will continue to offer commercial versions of Liberty that include access to dedicated technical support and advanced capabilities, but the core of the software will be available to any developer.
By open-sourcing the code, IBM hopes to make Liberty a relevant piece of software for some time to come while further improving the Java development community. This fits in well with IBM’s earlier open-source contributions, including Eclipse OpenJ9. In fact, with WebSphere Liberty, Eclipse OpenJ9, Eclipse MicroProfile—which IBM was a founding member of—and Java EE, it is possible to have a fully open-licensed Java stack model to build, test, run, and scale Java applications. This is fantastic news for Java developers, and an excellent opportunity to further the standards of Java development for the entire community.
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