Between the new storage systems and management software announced at its annual customer conference this week, Hewlett-Packard sneaked in a small present for developers that promises to take some of the work out of building complex corporate applications. But what the framework perhaps lacks in disruptive potential it more than makes up for in strategic significance.

Grommet, as the collection of libraries, graphic assets and best practices that the company has distilled from its internal development efforts to help automate the creation of interfaces is called, marks the first in CEO Meg Whitman’s renewed attempt to engage the open-source ecosystem. HP is already deeply involved with several projects, but that work has largely been happening behind the scenes.

As a result, many developers are likely less appreciative of its contributions than Whitman would like. The company is the single biggest producer of code in the upstream OpenStack ecosystem and plays a similarly active part in the Cloud Foundry Foundation that oversees the popular platform-as-a-service stack of the same name.

As an entirely homegrown initiative, Grommet should carry  HP’s mark more clearly than those projects, not least because applications built on top will share a common look with its software. The company will likely continue its efforts along the same vein as the competition over the hearts and minds of developers intensifies.

Many of its top rivals have also stepped up their efforts on that front lately, with EMC most recently releasing the code for its flagship software-defined storage platform under a free license while IBM continues to roll out new application services for its public cloud. In response, open-source software has been designated a top priority for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the company that will emerge from HP’s forthcoming split, but it remains to be seen how Whitman executes that vision.

Photo by HP