The group in charge of the open-source Eclipse project
approved a three-month restructuring process this week which aims
to reduce IBM's dominant role and make the project more attractive
to Java suppliers such as Sun Microsystems and BEA
Systems.
"The board, which is made up of 47 major companies in the tool
business, voted to create an independent entity of Eclipse, and it
was unanimous," said Eclipse chairman Skip McGaughey. This
independent entity is going to preserve and protect the open-source
nature of development, and it is going to preserve and protect the
structural arrangements we have with all of the member
companies."
Under Eclipse's new structure, which is expected to be in place
by December, the project will be managed by a professional
management organisation, and IBM will have a less prominent role
both as day-to-day manager of the project and as developer of the
core Eclipse infrastructure, said McGaughey.
"By creating an independent entity, it's a clear statement that
what we're trying to do is create an industry-wide platform for
integration," he added
Oversight of Eclipse will be transferred to a board of directors
that will be made up of open-source developers, Eclipse tool
providers, and "strategic producers" who devote significant
resources to the development of the Eclipse infrastructure.
The Eclipse project was founded with a $40m investment from IBM
in 2001 to create an open-source platform for building Java
development tools. Though much of the Eclipse development work has
been done by IBM engineers, the project has picked up the
endorsement of a number of Java tools companies, including Borland
Software, Oracle and SAP.
One company that has not joined Eclipse is Sun Microsystems,
which has viewed the project as a competitive threat to its own
NetBeans open-source development framework. Sun has even
characterised the project as a potential threat to Java's "write
once, run anywhere" philosophy, because Eclipse developers use a
non-standard tool called the Standard Widget Toolkit to build the
graphical components of their Java applications.
However, Sun officials confirmed that it is considering a
membership in Eclipse, although a Sun spokeswoman admitted the
company had always been irritated by the name Eclipse. "Sun
probably won't join a group named so obviously as a competitive
gesture," she added.
An Eclipse name change could be in the works, predicted Gartner
vice president of research development Mike Blechar. "The very
name of the group - as in eclipse of the sun - has been a touchy
point."
One Eclipse member was willing to consider a name change if it
would bring Sun on board. "I think the name Eclipse isn't as
important as the unification of the industry around development
tools," said Oracle director of strategy Ted Farrell. "That's the
end goal. It's not someone having control of a name."
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service