The OpenUP process family is designed to perform a wide range of project types with common features.

OpenUP is based on the following basic principles:

• Working together to align interests and achieve common understanding;
• Development to continuously provide feedback and improve the project;
• Concentration on architectural issues in the early stages to minimize risks and design development;
• Alignment of competitive advantages for maximizing consumer value for stakeholders.

Processes from the OpenUP family are created as extensions to the basic OpenUP process, using a pragmatic, dynamic philosophy with a focus on the collective nature of software development. The core OpenUP process is tool independent, a little-regulated process that can be extended to meet the needs of a wide range of project types.

Types: As mentioned earlier, IBM plans to provide a number of extensions that will be part of future versions of RUP.

Processes from the OpenUP family are created as extensions to the basic OpenUP process, using a pragmatic, dynamic philosophy with a focus on the collective nature of software development. The core OpenUP process is tool independent, a little-regulated process that can be extended to meet the needs of a wide range of project types.
By adding plug-ins, you can create extensions to the OpenUP process, designed to address various development issues, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA), spatial dispersal, driven by development models and embedded systems. In the process, you can add help on specific technologies, for example, the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) guide, and various development tools. Some of the extensions can have a very specialized purpose, for example, adding to the process just a help for a specific tool for solving existing problems, while others can be quite complex and create processes that significantly expand the scope of projects with new or modified artifacts, tasks or roles.

As mentioned above, in order for expansion processes to be attributed to the OpenUP family, they must conform to the basic principles of OpenUP and be written in the form of extensions to the basic OpenUP process.

OpenUP extensions can:

• Used within the organization;
• Provided as an open source in the EPF project;
• Distribute freely outside the scope of open licenses Eclipse;
• Distribute on a commercial basis.