Kirill Grouchnikov's Blog

Eclipse - the milk cow for the board members

Comments

• 
  Kirill, this is blatant spin. Eclipse is both and open platform and open source. There is no evidence of a lack of independence despite the number of influential vendors that are part of the Foundation, something that most open source communities, including this one, are ever vigilant against. There is also little evidence that the Eclipse Foundation is anything other than "not for profit". Your "evidence" that Actuate and others intend to make money from Eclipse merely indicates that members of the foundation are commercial vendors but says nothing about the foundation itself. Given that they are commercial vendors, it is unsurprising that they intend to make money from Eclipse. Given that this has been happening from the start (Websphere Studio), it obviously is not something of great concern to the millions of developers who download and use the "basic" version in preference to all the other Java IDE's available today.
  

  Posted by: dkfn on July 27, 2005 at 09:49 AM

• Hi Kirill,

  You are incorrect about Actuate selling 'additional features not available in the free version'. Actuate is merely selling maintenance and support for the open version of BIRT.
  From the press release that you link to...

  >>
  Actuate BIRT delivers functionality that is identical to the Eclipse BIRT project, its Open Source Eclipse Public License (EPL) equivalent. Actuate BIRT provides the convenience of a one button install, and Actuate backed licensing, maintenance, professional services and support.
  <<

  Posted by: emorning on July 27, 2005 at 10:16 AM

• You are an idiot. Why are you trying to spin blatant FUD?

  You are making wild assumptions based on wildly unstable evidence. My guess is that you're one of those IntelliJ advocates.

  Posted by: michaeldowling on July 27, 2005 at 10:23 AM

• emorning,
  Reading from the PR link:
  >>Actuate BIRT includes reporting and charting offerings that are immediately available on an annual subscription pricing basis starting at $95 per developer user.
  To me it spells "Pay us and we'll give you additional features", and they go on providing detailed description of these two designer SDKs.
  Others,
  Sun has been posting Java sources for everybody to see for years, without charging money for using Java. Did anybody consider Java to be open source? Sun has been maintaining bug parade for years, allowing everybody to post bugs. Did anybody consider Java to be open source? All of a sudden, only because Eclipse bundles sources and has bugzilla, it's open source. I haven't seen that many outside developers handling bugs on Eclipse bugzilla. I would love to see hard numbers - percent of bugs fixed by paid employees of board member companies and percent of bugs fixed (not reported) by people doing it in their free time. Even better, percent of people (understanably full-time employees have much more time on their hands to fix bugs). Once these figures even out, you can call Eclipse true open source.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 27, 2005 at 10:45 AM

• Let's not be too hard on Kirill here. I don't work for Sun, but I think they're feeling the heat of IBM's spin vis-a-vis the eclipse vs. netbeans competition. IBM is presenting the eclipse foundation as somehow "more open" than netbeans.org, and using that to draw companies interested in a tools platform towards eclipse. In reality, they are very much equivalent. We can argue the finer points of governance (I'm on the netbeans governance board), but I think it's fair to say that both are making honest efforts towards a true independent governance model.

  Posted by: richunger on July 27, 2005 at 10:47 AM

• 
  Kirill, whether Java is "open source" in spirit if not officially is a separate argument (I happen to be very happy with how Sun is stewarding the Java language). As regards whether Eclipse is open source: the EPL is an OSI approved licence and the OSI has no mandates regarding the level of external committers are required for an application to be open source. It doesn't get more clear cut than that.

  
  If, as richunger said, this blog entry is to counter Eclipse FUD over netbeans, rest assured I don't believe them either. While I do prefer Eclipse, I was a very happy netbeans user for a long time and have much respect for the work that has gone into it.
  

  Posted by: dkfn on July 27, 2005 at 12:10 PM

• Wow, this is blantly sun propaganda again. Almost as much as when Tim boudreau bashed Eclipse's governance board - Tim later had to remove his blog posting & apologize for his short-sighted flame.

  Kirill, you've had nothing but excellent posts in the past. This post is totally unlike your normal posts rife with good tech hints and discoveries, and seems very manufactured. I would take a guess that you were highly encouraged to post this for the propaganda machine...after all, Sun's 2nd quarter 2005 results did just come out, and they were disappointing.

  Posted by: phlogistic on July 27, 2005 at 02:02 PM

• Kirill is making an important point here: The Eclipse Foundation claims to be independent, but it is exactly the opposite. It claims to be "supporting the Eclipse open-source community", instead it is the driving force behind almost everything Eclipse. It claims to be "not-for-profit", which is downright silly, given the number of paid man-hours IBM is devoting to it.
  Eclipse is great, but IBM is not a charity. Notice that Eclipse tutorials, apis, and documentation are almost always internal-plugin-centric, rather than concentrating on apps that run outside of the IDE proper. IBM's clear strategy is to lock developers and applications into Eclipse's rich frameworks and tools.
  In my opinion, that's a fine business strategy, but IBM should be honest about their economic goals for Eclipse rather than feigning to be some kind of charity.

  Posted by: kj12345 on July 27, 2005 at 09:25 PM

• phlogistic,
  I could be highly encouraged to write this, and i could be a part of Sun propaganda, if it were not for a small thing - I am not a Sun employee.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 27, 2005 at 10:06 PM

• The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

  So there are companies involved in Eclipse who invest enough manpower to be able to steer the direction of the project towards something that they can draw a profit of (or try to). WOW, what a revalation.
  But now tell us all where the great big alarmbells are going off and what the emergency is.
  Without those commercial contributions there would be no product, or certainly none that's close to what we have today (which is actually quite good for a freebie).
  If you examine any other large OS project, you'll find companies pulling the strings as well, albeit often less openly.There's companies involved in almost all Apache (sub)projects, though they're often not explicitly mentioned (they just donate staff under their own name), for example. Same with Linux, BSD, etc. etc.Whether you like it or not, free software development is driven by corporate interest in those products. Without corporate investment most projects would loose their most productive and valuable members as they'd be pulled towards other, more directly profitable, ventures.
  Some might continue to do work in their spare time but they'd go from 10+ hours a day working on it to maybe 1 or 2. Multiply that by half the project staff and you're looking at some serious slowdowns...

  Posted by: jwenting on July 28, 2005 at 06:12 AM

• For me the key is in the actual licensing. Sure, you're right that Sun's fostering of Java is very similar to IBM's fostering of Eclipse in terms of the amount of in-house development committed (an overwhelming percentage). That being said, the reason Eclipse is open source, and it can't be changed to mean anything else is because a.) it used to be CPL licensed and b.) it is now EPL licensed (which is a derivative of CPL). Both of these licenses are truly open source, and they say that as the source code sits now, if I want to I can take it and maintain a derivative work legally.

  Now, I would imagine that if I took all of the source for the JDK (including sun. and com.sun. classes, not to mention native code) fiddle around with it adding my own features, and then redistribute it as the RJDK (RJ-JDK, get it?) that Sun's legal team might be none-to-happy. Not to mention the fact, that up until Java 5, if I *learned* anything by looking at the source code and reapplied that new technique to a new bit of my code, I am technically speaking breaking the law (the SCSL didn't allow browsing the source code for research means, the JRL does).

  So, am I saying that Sun's means of fostering Java is bad? No, I am not about to poke that bee-hive. However, the *worst* that is going to happen from IBM's fostering of Eclipse is IBM can choose to make all *FURTHER* development commercial (by changing the licensing on any new work they do), and cease providing servers, and employees to maintain it. I can still take Eclipse 3.1 Final as it stands today, and start an open source derivative.

  If Sun were to decide to cease offering the JDK, they could pull all downloads of the JRE, JDK, etc for ALL versions, and no one could use it as a starting point without Sun's permission. Granted, as I understand it, the Java specification is a standard and can be used as a starting point for a new JRE/JDK bundle, which I think is why there is a desire for Apache Harmony to be produced (all so the licensing can be more like Eclipse's licensing).

  So, in reality, is Eclipse still an IBM child even though it is labeled open source? Absolutely!
  Is that different from most other open source projects? No!
  Is that a bad thing? Depends. Eclipse moves a lot faster than it probably would otherwise because IBM commits so many resources to it, but on the flip side, if IBM should stop any ownership of it, the community would be hard-pressed for a while to make up the loss, but there would be at least someone to fill some of the empty space. Also as a con, IBM right now guides a lot of the direction of the project (And can turn it for their own benefit), but again, the licensing as it stands prevents that from being a real problem - and as IBM works to get more companies and individuals actively involved (on the Eclipse board, it ensures that Eclipse's direction is at least as fair and impartial as say, the JCP. Besides, Eclipse's direction towards open-ness and extensibility seems much better than most projects I've seen (corporate sponsered, or not).
  Anyway, that's my take on it.

  Posted by: rjlorimer on July 28, 2005 at 06:58 AM

• Kirill - I know you're not a Sun employee. You make a point of "I could be highly encouraged to write this, ... if it were not for a small thing - I am not a Sun employee." However, you don't have to belong to an organization to be influenced by them! This is evident every day with many examples, such as lobby groups lobbying politicians to enact or vote on laws to benefit the lobby group, or criminal organizations breaking body parts of someone who they lent money in order to get someone to pay up the money. You don't have to belong to an organization to be forcibly / not forcibly influenced by them.

  I've never read a single positive blog entry on java.net about Eclipse. I have read several bad blogs about Eclipse. I've never read a single negative blog about NetBens on java.net. But a good blog about NetBeans is posted almost daily. That alone should be enough evidence that all postings on java.net are biased in favor of Sun, when Sun has a competitor for a product they produce. Try to find a positive article about eclipse - and look at the ratio of good / bad articles of Eclipse, and then NetBeans. The difference is a very wide rift. I must of missed the posting that Eclipse 3.1 final was released...or maybe there wasn't one? Is there any question with these facts that this entire site, and all of its webloggers, is not biased?

  One can argue that for-profit contributors of the open-source Eclipse project have an alternate goal - providing plug-ins that Eclipse users must pay for. I completely agree...some organizations will have alternative motives for "contributing".

  However, if you're going to argue the point that the contributors to the Eclipse project, you must also agree that Sun's Java Community Process (JCP) Program is also motivated by Sun's interests to turn a profit (because they are a for profit-company). This is evidenced by the amount sun charges JCP members - $2000 or $5000 simply for wanting to be a part of the contributing community of Java. Not very fair for any organization who wants to help contribute to open source projects, is it?

  Furthermore, you must also agree that any for-profit contributors in the JCP to any JSR can have alternative motives, just as Kirill & his supporters suggest. This was plainly evident with the JCP vote on the JDO 2.0 specification. The for-profit companies that voted down JDO 2.0 had a vested intrest in EJB 3 with their for-profit products (IBM + Websphere for example). If you're a for-profit company, you don't want an alternative to EJB 3 named "JDO" to pull away some customers from purchasing your product - so you vote the alternative technology down. Positive not-for-profit members, such as Apache, voted to approve JDO 2.0 with positive comments such as "Let 1000 flowers bloom, and may the best technology win".

  In summary - yes I agree some of the motives of contributors to Eclipse are in question. However, to flame such when Sun has a organization, the JCP, that does the very same thing with contributors that have alternative motives when contributing to open source projects - is hippocracy, and the pot calling the kettle black.

  Posted by: phlogistic on July 28, 2005 at 08:37 AM

• phlogistic,
  It baffles me to see that people are drawing conclusions based on something that was not said. It's the third posting on my blog on Eclipse, the first one on IBM involvement and the second on using Eclipse compiler. Not once had i questioned the technical merits of Eclipse as a tool, much less suggested that it is inferior to NetBeans or IDEA. On the contrary, the above mentioned post shows how to use Eclipse compiler in a WebStart application.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2005 at 08:48 AM

• Your flaming comments of the Eclipse community are very clear...there's nothing to be baffled about what you posted. For clarity of all readers, I've repeated your comments flaming Eclipse below - scroll to the top of the page to find them again.

  It seems that an assembly of highly influential commercial vendors is steering the wheel (independent from what?)
  hoping to make a lot of money for themselves (not-for-profit for basic functionality?)
  lulling us into the false sense of the open source community (which finds them bugs instead of paid testers).

  
  Therefore you are clearly saying, with each bulleted point below corresponding to the bulleted point above:

  Many contributing commercial vendors to Eclipse hope to manipulate Eclipse for their own personal gain.
  Many contributing commercial vendors to Eclipse only contribute because they plan to make money in some form, later, independantly, with Eclipse.
  Eclipse lies, and is not really open source.

  
  I don't think what you said could be any clearer - there are no conclusions drawn that you believe Eclipse is not truly open source, and all contributors plan to reap a profit from Eclipse users later. Would you like to un-say any of those three points? Do you believe I am taking "lulling us into the false sense of the open source community" out of context and making conclusions for what it really means?

  Posted by: phlogistic on July 28, 2005 at 09:08 AM

• phlogistic,
  I stand behind each word i've said in the original posting (last time i checked, my name was not Tim). Two out of three conclusions you have reached are in perfect unison to what i was trying to say - i do believe that all commercial vendors hope to steer Eclipse tools for personal gain and contribute only because they plan to make some money off of it. That's the nature of business as we come to know it, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Big companies do exist to make money, and once the profits are down, necessary changes are made quickly and without much remorse.
  About the third point - i couldn't care less about the kind of licenses that OSI endorses. Call me naive, but i believe that the true meaning of open-source is something that enthusiastic people create on their free time because they love to do it, and not because Jim the manager tells them to. Understandably, without Jim the manager and many millions of dollars pouring into the development directly by the Big Blue, Eclipse will not have reached its current (and technically remarkable) state. However, this does not take my mind away from a simple fact - it's not "OSI says" game, it's what the feeling is. It's free, it's popular, it's good, but it's not open-source like it was meant to be (with the wide-eyed wondering Don Quichotes storming the windmills.
  Sun has ulterior financial motives for open sourcing Solaris and AS, as well as IBM (and other Eclipse board members) do for open sourcing the tooling platform. The only difference is that IBM does not admit it, while Sun openly does.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2005 at 10:35 AM

• Right on, we both agree that for-profit contributing vendors contributing to the Eclipse open source project do not have only the goal of the project in mind, but also to reap profits from the Eclipse project in the near or far future. I'm glad to see you are open-minded to debate, this is refreshing.

  So then you also agree with me that Sun's JCP program, and it's JSRs, also have for-profit companies contributing to specifications / open source / reference APIs / reference implementations; and those same for-profit companies also do not have only the interests of the JSR in mind, but also wish to profit off the same JSRs they contribute to, in a fashion synonymous to how the Eclipse foundation works...correct? JCP case in point, same vendor in question, Big Blue, helping with EJB 3.0 & attempting to vote down a new version of a competing (in some areas competing w/ overlapping technology) technology that could hurt their profits, JDO 2.0. I want to make it clear that the Eclipse foundation isnot the only organization that plays 'open source' in this fashion.

  Posted by: phlogistic on July 28, 2005 at 10:45 AM

• The debate can only be good to both sides (unless of course, one of them is a 13yr old slashdotter).
  But other than that, your point is absolutely correct. The corporate members of JSRs are their to see that 1) They are not hurt by something that's missing, 2) They can profit by implementing the JSR before the "rest of the world" (which would not be totally correct, as the whole world has access to drafts, unless, of course, the member in question steers the JSR towards his existing codebase) and 3) To establish its presence on the market (although the quantity does not necessary translate to quality).

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2005 at 10:55 AM

• The same off-the-mark criticism could be aimed at NetBeans and Sun. You miss the point. Of course corporations intend to make a profit. Of course corporate contributions to open source aren't an act of charity. It's a silly little straw man you're trying to knock down.The ways companies try to profit from open source vary. Red Hat makes money by packaging. JBoss (and many others) make money by selling services. Michael Kay makes money by selling a full-functionality version of his open source Saxon. Rick Jelliffe sells a faster version of Schematron than the open source one. You might even make a flimsy case that IBM is trying to lock people in with Eclipse so it can sell them WSAD, or Sun the same with NetBeans and Studio. But you can hardly claim that all the contributors to Eclipse are trying to lock people into all their different products. That's not lock-in, that's choice. The reasons companies contribute to open source are often more subtle than simple sell-through. Oracle has no Eclipse-based development tools; why is it contributing to Eclipse? IBM doesn't make a nickel from XML parsers; why is it contributing to Apache? Both IBM (with WST) and Sun (with Collab) are, in fact, contributing features out of their proprietary products into the open source foundations. Why would they do that? You might try understanding what's happening in the odd social movement we call open source instead of just throwing a few random smears around.

  Posted by: bobfoster on July 28, 2005 at 12:58 PM

• Kirill - right on about the 'quantity doesn't always ensure quality'. I think this sometimes can become a problem for open source initiatives - an example is the number of different Linux distributions.

  With my developer hat on, I think that having 100 different distributions of an open source code base, such as Linux, is great. I can pick and chose what open source best suits my needs.

  With my corporate or technology manager hat on, it's a nightmare. What open source distribution is most popular, as best to keep with developers? What open source distribution will be around for awhile? Will the distribution keep up with major changes in the core distribution? If the distribution goes sour in popularity or quality, how best to switch to another distribution? What if there's no quality support, such as technician you can query in paid support calls?

  But I'm getting off topic. Anyways, thanks for humoring me, its nice to know you care about what the posters here think.

  Posted by: phlogistic on July 28, 2005 at 05:32 PM

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