[ox-en] EU funds project to boost open source efficiency
- From: Soenke Zehle <soenke.zehle web.de>
- Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:12:46 +0100
EU is, as usual at odds with itself, sz
EU funds project to boost open source efficiency
Published on March 11, 2005
As part of an EU drive to make European software development more
competitive on
the global market, the European Commission is providing 2.2 million euro
for a
project to build new tools for simplifying complex IT projects based on
open-
source software like Linux.
The EDOS (environment for the development and distribution of free software)
project partners hope to shorten the development cycles and lower the
cost for
large-scale modular software projects. By promoting open source
software, Member
States and the European Commission are hoping to counter the outsourcing of
software development to third countries.
As the project partners explain, software projects have grown to unforeseen
levels of complexity with some recent Linux operations systems comprising
thousands of individual packages with decentralised ownerships.
The EDOS project therefore aims to develop better tools in order to
integrate
those components and keep better track of their internal dependencies
and the
software versions being used. The project will also move towards a
process that
promises to provide more storage and computing power and efficiency.
'There is an issue any large project has to deal with at some point, and
that is
how to manage complex dependencies between parts so as to get an integrated,
coherent whole,' says one of the project partners, Roberto Di Cosmo from the
University of Paris 7 in France.
Two tools are initially being earmarked for development - au automated
software
quality testing suite to make testing more efficient and more
comprehensive and a
distributed peer-to-peer (P2P) application system for sharing software
components. This application would help system builders install and
integrate
software components running across dozens or even thousands of PCs and
servers.
Speaking about the testing suite, Anton Anisimov from SOT in Finland
explained
that 'a comprehensive, effective test framework will save developers,
testers and
users a lot of time and will save organisations a lot of money. We
believe this
will be a major contribution to future software development,' he added.
'The concrete results EDOS will bring about will benefit everyone, not
just Open
Source developers. EDOS brings together some of the field's most prominent
players, to solve the problem of complex dependencies before it becomes
unmanageable and to improve testing processes. This will result, in the
short
term, in better software. Ultimately, it will also contribute to Europe's
competitive edge in the world market,' concluded project partner Francois
Bancilhon, from Mandrakesoft in France.
The project will have a duration of 30 months, and the resulting
software will be
released under an open source license.
For further information on EDOS, please visit:
http://www.edos-project.org <http://www.edos-project.org/>
Source: CORDIS
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: projekt oekonux.de