Okay, it's not news to anyone that Google loves open source. But recently, the company turned the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) into an open source project. While the GWT has been around for at least eight months (and probably longer), it was originally closed. It is now open to developers.
What is the GWT? It's an open source Java development framework that makes it easier to write AJAX applications. Google's own description explains that "With GWT, you can develop and debug AJAX applications in the Java language using the Java development tools of your choice. When you deploy your application to production, the GWT compiler translates your Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML."
GWT is being released under the Apache 2.0 open source license. It can be used to develop non-commercial, commercial, and enterprise applications. Naturally Google uses GWT in the company's own projects, such as GMail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. GWT even has its own blog and discussion group; the blog's first entry was dated August 26, 2006, with the December 12 entry triumphantly announcing that the current release candidate, GWT 1.3, is 100 percent open source.
Google does believe in giving back to the community as part of their "don't be evil" mission, and this is one way to do that. In fact, one could argue that the company's goal from the very beginning wasn't just to "organize all of the world's information" but to improve the Internet experience for everyone. In the GWT blog, the project's Tech Lead, Bruce Johnson, explained that their mission is "To radically improve the web experience for users by enabling developers to use existing Java tools to build no-compromise AJAX for any modern browser."
Google even has a page on "Making GWT Better" that explains its philosophical approach to building GWT and breaks the mission statement down a phrase at a time to explain its meaning. The page also explains what GWT isn't about (language wars, bait and switch, etc.). It really emphasizes that everything is done for the end user. This is an important theme; it has played no small factor in Google's success so far, and you can expect to see it continue into the future for as long as Google is successful.
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