You may have already read about it in the various news outlets and blogs covering the announcement, but if you haven’t I’m excited to spread the word that G2One - The Groovy/Grails company - has been acquired by SpringSource. The result is that Groovy and Grails join the growing number of excellent Open Source projects delivered by SpringSource.

The Spring Framework really pioneered simplified development on the Java platform. A philosophy that is the very essence of Grails. Both frameworks aggressively try to makes the lives of developers easier. The Spring Framework provides an abstraction layer of common Java enterprise APIs, whilst Grails uses the Groovy dynamic language to further simplify Spring and Java. In this sense Grails fits perfectly into SpringSource’s philosophy.

On the Grails front this is great news at multiple levels. With Grails already being based on Spring, users of Grails now have access to expertise about not only Grails, but also Spring, the framework that underpins all of Grails. Grails will benefit further from tighter integration with the Spring Framework with exciting integration possibilities on the horizon between Grails and great Spring portfolio products like Spring Batch, Spring Integration and SpringSource dm Server.

Grails will benefit from greater visibility and wider adoption simply by being under the SpringSource umbrella. In addition, SpringSource will bring all their expertise around Eclipse plugin development ensuring that users of Groovy and Grails have a first class experience in the Eclipse IDE.

At SpringSource, there is a lot of excitement about Groovy and Grails. Grails adds that little bit of Web 2.0 spice to the company and provides yet another avenue for users to adopt the Spring Framework. We’re literally buzzing with ideas on how Spring, Groovy and Grails can be integrated in the future and look forward to the feedback of the respective communities.

I personally will continue to lead Grails at SpringSource, whilst Guillaume remains the project lead of Groovy. The majority of the former G2One team have taken up positions at SpringSource. On the topic of Guillaume, he is as excited about this development as I am and has a great post on the benefits of the acquisition to Groovy. Check it out!

Resources:

• SpringSource/G2One Acquisition Announcement
  
• Guillaume LaForge’s Blog
  
• Rod Johnson's Blog