[wtp-proposal] WTP proposal: Commoditization

["Ed Burnette" <Ed.Burnette@xxxxxxx>]

I've been reading through the WTP proposal and have some questions and feedback. To start with, one of the key principles is listed as follows:

"Vendor ecosystem vs. commoditization: The goal of this project is to support a vital application development market, rather than to "commoditize" viable commercial product spaces with an open source alternative. Commercial vendors will use what this project delivers as a foundation for their own product innovation and development efficiency. "

I'd like some clarification on this. The second sentence goes without saying but the first one can be interpreted different ways.

IMHO, Eclipse and WTP are destined to "commoditize viable commercial product spaces" and this is a good thing. The challenge for vendors is to focus on the value they can add to that. The Platform should not be limited by vendors' imaginations, rather, vendors' imaginations should be enabled, stretched, and set free by the Platform. The Platform allows vendors to focus on their core competencies rather than re-inventing the same wheel that everone else has to invent. It also attracts a critical mass of developer talent and mindshare by being free and open source.

To be more specific, I believe the ultimate goal for WTP's (and Eclipse's) tools should be to be the best of breed in the Web and Java Tools market. Right out of the box it should have equivalent or better functionality than VS.NET, Project Rave, IDEA, Jbuilder, and so forth. Then *that* becomes the baseline that all the vendors build on and use for their own projects. It's a win for the users who get more functionality, commonality, and interoperability, and it's a win for the vendors like SAS who can concentrate on what they do best.

--Ed