Tasktop Offers Open-Source Effort To Link And Sync The API Economy

The complexity of connecting tools in this new API economy is getting compounded by the inability to link this new breed of services so people can talk in context about the code. Application development cycles are shorter and developers are picking tools that make them more productive.

To counter the increasing complexity, Tasktop Technologies, an application lifecycle management (ALM) integrator, is today launching an open-source effort called Software Lifecycle Integration (SLI) that would link the disparate tools in the software lifecycle management process. The new initiative is called M4, and if approved at EclipseCon, it will become part of an open-source project under Eclipse-Mylyn.

SLI is what Tasktop CEO and co-founder Mik Kersten calls an underlying service that acts as a universal linked data message bus that allows for real-time synchronization between different tools so people can immediately discuss problems with the code as they surface.

m4messagebus

Tasktop links data from different ALM tools that a company uses. Often, companies may use software from IBM, HP or Atlassian. But the tools are often disconnected. Tasktop has developed a way for these tools to connect to each other through a linked data infrastructure that allows for developers to see real-time updates to the projects they are developing in collaboration with each other.

Tasktop hopes to provide a similar linked data underpinning so developers can get to the data in these ALM suites to help fix integration problems that are increasingly common as more companies use APIs to connect different software and online applications.

Agile tools like GitHub have become indispensable for developers. They have broken down the barriers, bringing conversation to application development. That same level of conversation needs to extend through to the chain of tools that make up the software development cycle.

APIs are great connectors, but there has to be a better way to see the development behind the tools that developers use to make this next generation of software and services. We’ll see if the various vendors in the software world recognize the issue and recognize the need for a way to sync data across the app ecosystem.