Sun Microsystems is pondering joining the IBM-led Eclipse open source development tools project for Java, but still has some
concerns, a Sun official said on Thursday.
The company believes it is good to have communities of Java developers, thus it may be a good idea to join, said Joe Keller,
vice president of Java Web Service & Tools Marketing at Sun.
"The invitation came to us from the Eclipse group. We're still considering it. We're still waiting for them to figure out
what the invitation really looks like for us," Keller said.
"What we would explore [are] the ways we would address the issues," such as having a unified plug-in standard for plugging
in tools into different Java development environments, Keller said.
"That would be our agenda in joining Eclipse, to be part of that community [and] make sure they pursue Java standards in the
right way and look at how we as the Java community can serve developers better," said Keller.
Sun would not abandon the development core of its NetBeans initiative for open source development should the company join
Eclipse, Keller said. Some 1.6 million copies of NetBeans have been released to developers.
An official with Eclipse, contacted Thursday afternoon, reiterated that Sun is welcome to join and that the organization would
even consider a name change. Sun considers the name, Eclipse, to be a direct attack on Sun, Keller said.
"It’s been open [for Sun to join] for 18 months to two years," said Skip McGaughey, chairperson of Eclipse and an IBM employee.
He denied that the Eclipse name was intended to be anti-Sun.
Keller also reiterated Sun's plans to make a Java development tool that would make it easier to program in the language. Eyeing
Visual Basic-style development, Sun's Project Rave tool is due in a preview release in about two weeks, with a beta due in
2004 and general release planned for mid-2004.
"The rap on Java has been that it's too hard for folks and that's fundamentally a recognition that no one's built the right
kind of tool," Keller said.
Acknowledging Sun has only captured a small percentage of the marketplace in development tools, Keller said Sun hopes to boost
its fortunes in tools by tailoring functionality in the Sun Java Studio tool to work with Sun's Java Enterprise System. Run
times for Java Enterprise System will be included inside the tool. Formerly known as Project Orion, Java Enterprise System
features software for functions such as identity management, directory, Web server, and portal server. It is set to ship
at the end of the month.
"We've made a concerted effort to connect this toolset to the Java Enterprise System," Keller said.
Sun, however, does not build tools in hopes of making a lot of money off of them. The company hopes to seed the market for
Java and leverage applications to boost Sun software and hardware system sales, Keller said.
"Do we build a business to extract maximum profit from revenue derived from developers? No, that's not the goal of these programs,"
said Keller.
Keller also said he expects a draft specification of JSR (Java Specification Request) 208, to be ready from the JSR 208 expert
group next July. JSR 208 is intended to boost Java application integration via Web services through standardized mechanisms.
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