This past Thursday and Friday, I attended an IT architect conference here in Atlanta. Neal Ford, who works for ThoughtWorks, is a pretty well known Java guru and speaker and was running a session on polyglot programming.

ThoughtWorks created a framework called CruiseControl, which is used by a lot of Java and .NET shops to do continuous integration. Basically, CruiseControl checks out all the files from a version control system, builds its, and runs any unit tests. As developers check in new files, CruiseControl retrieves them, rebuilds, and runs unit tests again. Notifications are sent out if there are any problems.

CruiseControl is distributed with a BSD-style license.

Neal had a sad story, where ThoughtWorks was doing some consulting work for a big retailer. ThoughtWorks wanted to use CruiseControl during development, but the retailer refused. Since the retailer couldn’t buy a license, it was afraid it could get sued somewhere down the line for using it. To get around this, ThoughtWorks arranged for third-party company in Colorado to sell the retailer a license for CruiseControl. The retailer bought a license and was happy to use it.

Amazing.