Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Google Web Toolkit goes 100% open source

December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Google Web Toolkit goes 100% open source

TAGS: Open Source

Google is on a roll. The company has released its Web Toolkit under the Apache 2.0 license, as noted on the Google Web Toolkit blog:

Today is quite a milestone for Google Web Toolkit: with the GWT 1.3 Release Candidate, our team is very happy to announce that all of GWT is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. There's a lot to say, but let's start with our mission:

"To radically improve the web experience for users by enabling developers to use existing Java tools to build no-compromise AJAX for any modern browser."

Since our primary mission is to help users (as opposed to hoarding proprietary development tools), opening up GWT has always been a no-brainer -- we just had to decide when. Now that GWT has some serious adoption and a lively user community, open-sourcing is the obvious next step to help GWT evolve more quickly.

And we're committed to doing this the Right Way. All of our development will be done in the open, and we're going to be working directly from the GWT project on Google Code.

Google's Web Toolkit is used to build AJAX-friendly applications. The more usable the web, the more people will use Google (though not necessarily - I think it's important that Google has explicitly taken a step that potentially enables its competitors, including the license they opted to use for this project). Despite my trashing of Google in the past, this is a Very Good Move.

Prediction: Companies that learn to aggressively open up will win. Those that don't, won't. Google is learning. Others...? Not so much.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 12, 2006 03:43 PM

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