[news.eclipse.tools] Re: Timescales to end of evaluation

["J. Russell Smyth" <russells@xxxxxxx>]

This dosn't quite answer the question!

I understand IBM's stance of "if you want a Java IDE, buy our commercial
version", but there
are two alternative situations to this particular view:

1 - Someone who wants to use the framework for another IDE or tool, ie what
Eclipse is
"supposed" to be used for.

2 - (and this depends on what IBM's eclipse-workbench sales/use model is)
Many people may want to use
the basic tools available in the base Eclipse/JDT environment on a live
project to fully evaluate the
tool, purchasing WSAD for future project if the tool works well for them,
and/or they find a need
for the additional tools and functions built into the WSAD version.

I would also like to point out, in combination with point 2, that Sun's
Forte has been very successfull
in this plan - the framework with the basic Java tooling (NetBeans) is
available in the "Community" edition, but
more advanced tools are available at a cost. This has encouraged many to try
and use Forte (I am one)
in addition to building new tools on top of the NetBeans framework and new
plugins to be used with
community or commercial versions of Forte. This has created a large
developer group, several commercial
ventures developing tools around NetBeans, and a proliferation of tools.

So far in my investigation of Eclipse/Workbench, I have found the tools to
be more performant, and
so far they appear to be easer to develop for, plus they are better
documented, than NetBeans/Forte,
and could easily win over large numbers of Forte users - both community
types and commercial types.
I myself have been a religeous Forte user, and am very seriously considering
a change. This decision will
of course be somewhat influenced by the manner in which IBM makes eclipse
"open". NetBeans is clearly
open, and fully available to developers. At this stage it is unclear how
"open" eclipse will be - most of it
is available for "evaluation" now, and the web sites tote alot of "open"
terminology, but the current licensing
absolutly restricts what can be done with it. From what I can tell reading
the license, it is not even currently
acceptable to develop and distribute a new "plugin" for the platform.

So after my rather longish discussion here, I get back to asking the same
question that Tom had originally
asked:
When will Eclipse be available for non-evaluation use?

Russell Smyth
"Kyle Brown" <brownkyl@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9ngabo$e41$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Well, first of all, you must remember that Eclipse isn't so much an IDE as
> it is a toolkit for building IDE's.  IBM has already announced that they
> will be selling a commercial tool based on the Eclipse technology (called
> Websphere Studio Application Developer), probably beginning sometime in 4Q
> 2001.  That is probably what you should consider for real project
> development with Eclipse.
>
> Kyle Brown
> IBM WebSphere Services
>
> "Tom Ayerst" <tom.ayerst@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:9najvt$dms$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Hi,
> >
> > Is there a road map anywhere of time to the first non-evaluation release
> > of Eclipse?  As it is currently: "The Program must not be used in your
> > normal business production environment." so we cannot consider it as a
> > candidate IDE.
> >
> > Is it worth waiting (i.e. will it be soon) or should we just go with one
> > of the others now?
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Tom
> >
>
>