eWeek is reporting that ClearNova is open-sourcing its ThinkCAP JX AJAX and Java development platform under the GPL, with a commercial version available that includes indemnification and the right to embed into a solution for $2000 per developer. ThinkCAP is based on "almost 25 open source libraries" (so 24?), including Struts, Hibernate, JFreeChart, and prototype.js (for a short example list).

The ThinkCAP JX Workbench, available for a $499 subscription, is able to create page flows, forms, persisted objects, and data-aware grids, along with application testing and debugging tools.

I fell they couldn't market it out as a commercial and now they are just rebranding it as Open Source. It takes huge amount of time to view a sample demo where there is really nothing much to chow in those demos. For every visit the .js, .css files are reloading from teh server to client. I feel the architecture of this AJAX frame work need to be revisited to clean this mess.

I don't believe that a commercial framework will compete with others which not. Samples, support, tutorials, bug fixing, marketing wont be the same.
About AJAX it will be a matter of time and you will find another framework to do the job.
Also the Total cost of owndership may lead you to create your own framework!!

Ahmed Hashim
Software Engineer
Egypt

http://www.egjug.org

one more framework / tool/ cool thing ?
we should start betting as to how many days will this survive.
Going open source is a simple trick evey company has used to get fixes done for free at the same time charging for services/maintenance/stable version etc.
But there are too many frameworks in the ,arket providing all of this - may be ajax is something these guys have niche in. But ajax in general doesnt have much popularity yet on the enterprise level.
All the best - You will need it .

Since this is a web framework, is ClearNova confused on the ramifications of the GPL?