Codendi Blog

The INRIA (the French national institute for research in computer science and control) in Grenoble has animated on 12th January a seminar about the methodologies and experiences of the open source based developments.

This meeting, organized by the business intelligence Club IN Tech and GRILOG association (“Grenoble Isère Logiciel”, i.e. Grenoble Isère Software), was the occasion for the different actors, industrialists and researchers, to have a technological and information exchange.

During this conference, a demonstration session has allowed to present open source applications and products, and to discuss the development team organization, the features used, or the technology transfer among others.

Nicolas Guérin, our technical manager, has presented Codendi and its evolution : from the forge created inside the Xerox research center in order to gather all the required tools of the software development to a natural passage to an ALM tool.

Actually, the proprietary ALM solutions are generally complex, split and expensive. The approach proposed by the modern forge developers allows a natural integration of the ALM tools, as :

• the project standardization thanks to the patterns
• the possibility of parameter setting following the chosen methods (Scrum or other Agile methods, CMMI or quality)
• Or even the traceability of the requirements, tests, documents or taskswhich can be linked together.

Besides, the open source development opens up possibilities to integrate and adapt other tools to increase and diversify the features as Subversion, Git, CVS for versioning, Hudson for continuous integration, or Salomé TMF for test plan management.

The open source process makes easier the use of protocols and open standards as HTTP, XMPP, SOAP or LDAP.

Finally, it improves the contributions and the co-development model because it creates discussions with the users; so that the extensions developed were enough generic to be integrated into the application. So, all users benefit from it.

In fine, the open source is determinedly directed to the consumer, because of durability and search of innovation, and requires in return an investment in talents.

And you, what is your experience about the open source use? Share your opinions on this blog.