IBM is working towards building programming tools for geographically distributed teams through an open source project called Jazz. I wonder if this is a part of the Collaborative Development Environment work that IBM is doing.
Distributed teams have increased, not only because of outsourcing, but because Internet has made it possible to stay coordinated. This has enabled companies and projects to find ideal members across the seas. The only condition is a computer and a good Internet connection. However, collaborative development tools have not been given enough priority. It is time that they hit the circuit.
The Jazz software is meant to enhance collaborative software engineering by adapting existing collaboration tools and protocols to distributed development, Sabbah said.
For example, Jazz software will allow a programmer to send an instant message to a colleague with source code. Rather than see static text, the receiver could click to see where the code fits into the application, the original requirements and relevant tests.
It is currently all IBM, and expect Jazz to include all IBM tools. I sincerely doubt whether IBM will release everything as open source. However, they are definitely making it extensible via addons and is designed to work even with non-Eclipse tools. I will look forward to it, currently it is all hidden at Jazz.net.
