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Tool for Ajax development with Java goes open source

Martin LaMonica Former Staff writer, CNET News
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer covering green tech and cutting-edge technologies. He joined CNET in 2002 to cover enterprise IT and Web development and was previously executive editor of IT publication InfoWorld.
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Martin LaMonica

Software company ClearNova said it will open-source a toolkit designed to make Java programmers more productive writing Ajax-style Web applications.

The company next month will release the ThinkCAP JX development framework under the General Public License for non-commercial use. Software vendors which bundle the product for commercial use will be charged $2,000 per developer.

ThinkCAP JX is a visual development tool that cuts down on the need to write Java or JavaScript code, said Steve Benfield, vice president of strategy at ClearNova. The framework is built using a number of other open-source frameworks, including Hibernate and Apache Axis, he said.

ClearNova sells an integrated development environment (IDE) that is designed to work with the ThinkCAP JX framework. The IDE, called JX Workbench, is available for a $499 yearly subscription.

The source code to the ThinkCAP JX framework will be available from ThinkCAP.org.