[News.eclipse.foundation] Re: IBM, Sun, NB, and Eclipse ?

[Ed Merks <Ed.Merks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Vlad,

Comments below.

Vlad Varnica wrote:
> Hi Charlie and Tom,
>
> The only current problem I see is that the Java platform and Eclipse 
> Framework were never monetized.
Perhaps like the proverbial double-edged sword, this was also a key to 
their success.
> I think Eclipse Foundation is spending too much time on adopting too 
> many small open sources projects and not on providing a long term 
> stable frameworks on which existing vendors could leverage to generate 
> revenues.
The Eclipse Foundation doesn't adopt open source projects, it simply 
hosts them.  Therefore the Foundation itself is not responsible for 
providing long term stable frameworks, rather the projects themselves 
are directly responsible for that.  The Foundation can only encourage 
and promote this point of view, and I think it's doing that as well as 
is possible given that it's driven by what's effectively, from a 
Foundation control point of view, an entirely volunteer developer base.
> The problem is that many companies believe that the community will 
> improve open source plugins 
I know I improve my (EMF) open source plugins.
> and that it is a good long term investment to select these open source 
> plugins
I think selecting EMF is a good long term investment.
> and not to buy existing vendor solutions. 
So I see no problem for someone selecting EMF.  I see what you describe 
as potentially a problem for vendors competing with EMF.  Is that your 
point?
> The dilema having too many small open source projects is that there 
> are just one to five part-time commiters and the needed quality for 
> professional software is never reached.
So the old adage, buyer beware still applies, even for free things.  An 
important point though is that if your vendor solution goes belly up, 
your solution might disappear completely into thin air leaving you with 
no recourse, whereas with open source, you always have the "do it 
yourself" option.  To my thinking, the fundamental problem Eclipse faces 
is the free riders who use the technology and effectively give nothing 
back to improve it...
> I hope that large corporations will with this acquisition understand 
> that only using open source projects and not purchasing any other tool 
> is not possible anymore with IBM acquisition of Sun. 
I have no idea how you arrive at this conclusion.  It seems an assertion 
coming out of thin air.
> I hope that Eclipse will finally become a profitable market for ISV 
> vendor.
I think Eclipse is a basis upon which to build profitable technology and 
services and that Eclipse creates a market opportunity; it's not 
directly a market given it's open source.

> If Eclipse just remain "a gigs open source market" then IBM will 
> certainly not invest anymore.
I don't follow the "gigs" thing...  IBM is investing less because it's 
expecting others to follow its long term investment and as long as 
everything just shows up for free, what would compel others do do so.  
The free rider problem presents an ongoing challenge.
> This is why I think that IBM will first consider how to monetized 
> Eclipse versus Netbeans than the real technological value of each 
> platform. 
IBM has such a huge technology stack on top of Eclipse that I can't 
imagine that being refocused. Of course Web 2.0 is just too funky to 
ignore...
> Open source professional tools market is therefore dead today !! 
Because of IBM buying Sun?  Again, I haven't a clue how this follows.
> This is the return of the king "IBM" and the end of Sun open source 
> monetized market dream.
That's very dramatic.

Let me ask you this. You've got a company that's made heavy use of 
Eclipse technology, so what have you contributed back to improve the 
code quality of  the small projects with very few committers upon which 
you rely?
> Vlad,
> Omondo