Written by Jakub Balhar, Chair of the Zowe Technical Steering Committee
The effort to bring Open Source development to the mainframe is still very young. The Open Mainframe Project was founded in 2015 to deliver on this mission. To date, Open Mainframe supports 14 projects and Working Groups – five active and nine incubating – solely focused on the Mainframe environment.
Zowe, the first-ever open source project based on z/OS launched in 2018 to serve as an integration platform for the next generation of administration, is one of the most successful and popular projects under the Open Mainframe Project umbrella. With its nearly five hundred thousand downloads for all of the underlying products combined, it is obviously serving a relevant portion of the mainframe community in its efforts to modernize and standardize practices across all systems, whether on-premise or in the cloud.
Further validation of the effectivity comes from the research conducted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) on the activity and health of the Open Source projects. The 2021 results showed that Zowe is among the most active projects (#30) within the Linux Foundation, but a more recent report reveals something more prominent. Zowe is among the most active Open Source projects (#90 and #91) in the whole world. The research results are available on Github – Projects By PRs, Projects By Commits.
Zowe is changing the way the mainframe is managed through its vibrant, active community. Be a part of history – join us in driving Open Source for the mainframe and improving the Developer experience for everyone involved with the platform.
If you’re interested in learning more about Zowe or meeting the contributors and leaders of the community, you can find us at SHARE Columbus next week or Open Mainframe Summit in September.
