Mama (Middleware Agnostic Messaging Application) was made open source by Nyse Technologies in October, renamed OpenMama and made a Linux Foundation Labs project.

Now, OpenMama 2.1, "the first neutral standard in data messaging for financial services", has been made available. The project's members say that collaboration among companies and the Linux and open source communities is enabling users to embrace new, common middleware technologies and applications while reducing total cost of ownership and time to market.

The new version includes the Middleware Agnostic Market Data API (Mamda), which adds a market-specific data application development framework that includes support for quotes, trades and order books.

There is also support for C++, Java and Windows and integration of Nyse Technologies' Open Data Model Project, which provides an end-to-end open platform for facilitating and simplifying the consolidation of market data with independent technology, encoding formats and distributions mechanisms.

Meanwhile, IBM, Tick42 and TS-Associates have joined founding members Bank of America Merrill Lynch, EMC, Exegy, Fixnetix, and Nyse Technologies on the project's steering committee.

Jim Zemlin, executive director, the Linux Foundation, says: "OpenMama and open source software are accelerating for the messaging layer of the stack what Linux is doing for the OS-level of the software stack: driving innovation to support the largest number of complex transactions in real-time. The companies contributing to these efforts are leaders in their respective areas, and we're happy to see the tremendous progress that together they're making."