Alfresco Software has announced the Activiti Business Process Management (BPM) open source project and the addition of leading BPM expert Tom Baeyens as Chief Architect, BPM.

The Activiti project is a new Apache-licensed open source BPM platform designed from a blank slate to implement the new BPMN 2.0 standard from the Object Management Group (OMG) and to support new technology challenges such as interoperability and the Cloud. Tom Baeyens, founder and architect of the JBoss jBPM project, and fellow architect Joram Barrez, join Alfresco to create the first Apache-licensed BPMN 2.0 engine.

An independently-run and branded open source project, Activiti will work independently of the Alfresco open source ECM system. Activiti will be built from the ground up to be a light-weight, embeddable BPM engine, but also designed to operate in scalable Cloud environments. Activiti will be liberally licensed under Apache License 2.0 to encourage widespread usage and adoption of the Activiti BPM engine and BPMN 2.0, which is being finalized as standard by OMG.

Joining Alfresco in the Activiti project is the SpringSource division of VMware. Alfresco plans to submit the project to the Apache Foundation to attract a wide variety of BPM experts and drive BPM innovation.

The first alpha release of Activiti indicates the breadth of capabilities intended for the project, including:
Activiti Engine: A simple JAR file containing the Process Virtual Machine and BPMN process language implementation;
Activiti Probe: A system administration console to control and operate the Activiti Engine;
Activiti Explorer: A simple end-user application for managing task lists and executing process tasks;
Activiti Modeler: A browser-based and Ajax-enabled BPMN 2.0 process modeling tool designed for business analysts.

"Activiti will be very disruptive in the BPM landscape," said Tom Baeyens. "The Apache license, feature completeness and developer focus will bring Activiti to the next level of mass adoption of BPM technology. Activiti will drive innovation in the industry since common BPM features will become freely available. By harnessing these ideas and community effort, Activiti has the potential to become the de facto standard implementation for BPM and BPMN."

Activiti will become Alfresco's default business process engine, Alfresco will continue to support jBPM as well as other business process engines currently integrated with its ECM software. Alfresco will also offer support, maintenance and indemnity for the Activiti suite alongside the Alfresco Enterprise Edition.