This week at TechEd Vienna SAP announces a code exchange platform, where developers can share source code and collaborate on development projects. The platform has been in the making for some time, but by Q1/2010 it will be available for the community and integrated in SDN. Project owners can upload and share source code, models, metadata, documentation, sample data, configurations etc. and work collaboratively on the projects. Source code management, issue tracking, discussion forums, and other features will support them in their work. The integration into SDN will make it easy to find relevant projects and to cross-reference other SDN content.

In the past, dozens of SDN community members created applications that filled white spaces in the SAP offerings. SAPlink by Ed Herrmann and Dan McWeeney or Detroubulator by Morten Wittrock are just two of several dozen projects, currently hosted on other code sharing platforms. SAP wants to give projects like these a home in order to increase their visibility and to help them leverage the power of the SDN community.

With the new platform on SDN, projects will not only be more visible on SDN, they will also profit extensively from the developer and customer community. Project owners can much easier find additional project members to help develop, test and document their add-ons, and customers can rate and give feedback to projects. This will help all parties. More resources mean more and better add-ons filling more feature gaps, and project members will much better understand the needs of their users. Code exchange will be the one-stop-shop for developers and customers.

To support the new platform SAP also introduces new NetWeaver Developer Licenses that allow individual developers to use ABAP programming language and the NetWeaver Composition Environment offering free of charge to develop and share their prototypes on code exchange.

Both the code exchange area on SDN and the NetWeaver Developer Licenses will be rolled out to the larger SDN community by the end of this year. In the meantime, SAP Mentors as well as first pilot projects will get access to the platform as a close beta in order to co-develop SAP’s new co-development platform together with SAP’s top contributors.

If you are interested in learning more or participate with a pilot project, contact Erwin Tenhumberg or Mario Herger.