French IT integrator Bull has donated its Orchestra Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to the ObjectWeb open source consortium. 

A BPEL lets users define business processes such as an order entry or a price quote through web services and XML. 

The application essentially provides an automated way to guide users through the servers and databases that contain the required data.

ObjectWeb plans to integrate the technology into its Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) initiative.

The code donation makes Orchestra the first open source BPEL that complies with the BPEL 1.1 standard. It has been designed in anticipation of the upcoming BPEL 2.0 and BPEL J standards. 

Bull also claimed that the application stands out from other BPEL engines because it is designed to operate natively with Java application servers.

Red Hat subsidiary JBoss has a BPEL engine in beta which will be part of the company's jBPM application. 

ObjectWeb is a European not-for-profit organisation that develops open source middleware applications.

Bull is one of the co-founders of the organisation, which is the driving force behind the Jonas open source application server and the Celtix ESB.

ObjectWeb was dealt a major blow earlier this year when Red Hat acquired JBoss and decided to replace its Jonas-based Red Hat Application Server with software developed by JBoss. 

Jonas is considered to be technologically superior to JBoss, but Red Hat was unable to build up a customer base around the software.