Dynatrace offers 'free for life' developer program
In the world of technology, there’s open source, but it is often open source served up in a somewhat limited or restricted format under an essentially proprietary overhang that leads quite quickly into a commercially supported (essentially paid for) supply model.
There is true open source too… and we often call this free and open source software (FOSS), meaning software that is, for whatever functionality is presented, fully open source and free for use.
Then there is free for life (or FFL, if an acronym were needed)… and this is software, tooling, training (or any other elemental aspect of technology) that is both completely open and also completely free.
For any firm to provide free for life resources, there has to be a reason (after all, there’s no such thing as a free meal)… so one example that has come forward this year is Free for Life Developer Program from cloud software intelligence company Dynatrace.
The firm has provided this initiative to deliver resources devoted to the recruitment, education and growth of (customer and partner) developers who are extending the Dynatrace software intelligence platform across hybrid cloud ecosystems.
Raison d’être
Why is Dynatrace doing this?
Because (says the company), there is concerted effort and move across the IT industry to enable autonomous cloud operations so that functions such as cloud-scale DevOps can be carried out with automated intelligence and with little or no human intervention.
You could call this NoOps, or AIOps… as in Ops directed by AI (or what feels like nobody at all)… and Dynatrace often does.
Dynatrace’s open software intelligence platform can be integrated with third-party offerings to automate operations, drive smart process and workflow and to ingest new sources of data and events.
The Dynatrace Developer Program provides a centralised community for developers and enterprise application architects.
It consists of training materials, best practices and information on how to develop integrations and extensions on the Dynatrace software intelligence platform, to become more productive using Dynatrace’s own developer tools.
Connect & collaborate
All Dynatrace Developer Program members gain free access to a developer instance on the platform, where they can create new value on the platform. They can also use it to connect and collaborate with the Dynatrace community for as long as they are licensed to use the Dynatrace platform.
“The Dynatrace Developer program is a one‑stop shop for developers to innovate and create with Dynatrace,” said Steve Tack, senior vice president, product management at Dynatrace. “We’re empowering enterprises to extend the AI and automation core of the Dynatrace software intelligence platform to third-party tooling, platforms and workflows across the enterprise cloud to garner greater insight and automation, including autonomous cloud operations.”
So that’s free for life, as long as you work just on the platform, stay licenced to the platform and pledge allegiance (and your first born child, presumably) to the platform. We jest… there are wider third-party benefits here… as Dynatrace CTO and founder Bernd Greifeneder explained at Dynatrace Perform 2019 in Las Vegas… those other third party benefits could come in the form of helping to uncover efficiencies across wider aspects of the cloud stack that customers could be using… and also help create plug ins and other additional elements that may not have been immediately found unless there was engagement with the Dynatrace fabric.