The Open Mainframe Project (OMP) has launched a new community of developers called Ambitus to better understand how their existing open source environment can be implemented and operated on a mainframe. Ambitus joins 8 other OMP projects including Zowe, which will launch its first virtual hackathon on February 23.

As John Mertic, Director of Program Management for the Linux Foundation and Open Mainframe Project, puts it, “There is still hesitation for open source on the mainframe. Ambitus was created specifically to help developers and users understand how their environment works on z/OS and Linux on Z.”

Ambitus will foster a community around all open source technologies on z/OS by educating developers, sharing experiences about how to use technology stacks to accomplish useful business tasks and exchanging best practices, sample code, architectures and more.

OMP is also launching a virtual hackathon to educate developers, students, engineers and makers around the world about the Zowe framework and how it can be used to create enterprise applications. This online hackathon will launch on February 23 and will accept all Zowe-related projects from a team of 2 or more participants.

After April 5, OMP plans to host a webinar where each team can present their project in front of a panel of judges. OMP said it will recognize leading entries by inviting attendees to the inaugural Open Mainframe Summit at no cost to them.