The iSeries-toolkit: Open Source toolkit for the AS/400 programmer (Faqs)

Today there are two growing areas of software development. The first is being pushed by Microsoft's marketing machine; the second is being pushed by grass roots developers that refuse to believe that Microsoft is the only answer. On the iSeries, open source is making a late appearance, but that appearance is being felt. IBM provides tools that are based on open source projects including Linux, Apache, Xerces, Xalan, Tomcat, and the Java Toolbox. IBM can't do this alone, that is where the iSeries-toolkit and other iSeries Open source projects fit in.

The following list describes some of the open source projects supporting the iSeries platform:

Project	Technology	Description
Craig Rutledge - AS/400 FeedBack Ware	RPGIV	Craig has assembled dozens of tools and utilities for the AS/400 programmer. The high quality tools on his page are written in RPGIV and fairly well documented.
DBG/400	RPGIV	Martin Rowe's DBG/400 is a collection of integrated utilities. Among other things, DBG/400 provides a useful tool that helps set up a test environments with files and data areas, and then populates those files with all, or a subset, of data.
Apache Web Server	C	The Apache Web browser is the worlds most widely deployed Web browser and the one IBM uses on the iSeries.
JTOpen	Java	The open source Java toolkit for the AS/400.
Tomcat	Java	An open source Java Servlet and JSP engine. Tomcat is part of the Apache Jakarta project and supports the latest Servlet and JSP specifications. Tomcat is also very easy to install and run on the iSeries.
Struts	Java, Servlets, and JSP	A Model, Viewer, Controller (MVC) framework. The Struts framework provides functionality to a Servlet that is similar to the functionality that a display file provides to an RPGIV program. Struts is a lightweight framework that provides the "plumbing" typically found in a Servlet or JSP based application. Struts is a great place to start if you are considering taking your iSeries applications to the Web.
Cocoon	Java, Servlets, and XML	The Cocoon project provides a publishing framework that relies heavily on XML and XSLT. If you have content that you want to publish to a variety of targets like PDF, HTML, or WML, or do a lot of publishing, you should look into Cocoon.
Ant	Java and XML	Ant is part of the Apache Jakarta project and provides a make utility that allows you script build procedures. Quite a few open source projects use Ant extensively; the iSeries-toolkit provides a native implementation of Ant for the iSeries.

If you maintain an open source Web site that supports software running on the iSeries and it is not listed, send it to David Morris and it will be added.

Open Source on the iSeries