The Callisto Effect Redux

Ian noted earlier this month that we were going to make a "Callisto Effect" page to highlight the various ways organizations are making use of projects that will be released under the upcoming Callisto simultaneous release at the end of June.

I finally found the cycles late last week and over the weekend and started to post some of the quotes. The Eclipse Ecosystem never fails to amaze me for it's breadth and depth, and the organizations listed so far are a pretty good indication of that.

If your organization should be there, drop us a line at callisto.feedback@eclipse.org.

- Don

Help the Eclipse Requirements Council!

I've posted a working page of themes and priorities document from the Eclipse Requirements Council here. It's very loose and high level at the moment. Have some strong opinions? Please wiki away!

- Don

What should we do with Eclipse bug 145030?

We had a meeting of Phoenix developers today and the question was raised about what to do regarding bug 145030. We take bugs like this very seriously - we agree that there is ambiguity on the term "Eclipse", but aren't sure that being specific every single time is the right approach. For example, if we compare Eclipse, as an IDE, to other IDE's, do we need to really single it out by saying "as an IDE", or does it get tired? Or do we single it out by project, saying "Eclipse SDK" or "Eclipse Platform Project"?

This is a great problem to have. The term "Eclipse" has significant meaning as a platform, an open source project, an ecosystem, a development environment for Java, J2EE, C++, PHP, Ruby, a modeling environment, a business intelligence and reporting environment, and much, much more.

Ian kicked off the pillars of Eclipse which serves as a good terminology framework for each of us to clarify "which Eclipse" you're talking about - but is it necessary? Can we rely on context?

- Don

What the hell is Eclipse exactly anyways?

Mike Milinkovich nails the best overall explanation of "what is Eclipse" I have ever seen or head in this Sys-Con video published last week. You owe it to yourself to watch this video. At the very least watch the first few minutes, but definitely the whole thing when you have the time.

- Don

Eclipse Bounties at OpenLogic

OpenLogic is looking for Eclipse gurus (I would presume anyone well qualified would be good, but their FAQ hints at a strong bias for committers) to earn bounties for "resolving incidents".

The topic was thrashed out last month on Slashdot. OpenLogic opted for a "points" program under the assumption that bounty hunters would rather have an option for gifts over cash because "significant others" might try to divert the cash to the kids braces rather than for an XBox.

Ok, so this isn't the same bounty mechanism and level of "fun-ness" that I think Zx was looking for, but it still an interesting business model with interesting implications to open source projects.

What are your thoughts on OpenLogic's approach?

- Don

Open Source Insanity?

Matt Assay posted a blog entry today that hit on some points that have been on my mind for quite a while.

Matt draws a parallel between the pre-dot-com-bust obsession over "eyeballs" as a metric of valuation and today -- where some organizations are obsessing over downloads not giving any thought to how to build a sound business model on top of it.

It's almost as if some have been duped into believing that software has a negative marginal cost - just get your brand on as many desktops as humanly possible and you will figure it out how to monetize it later. Pre dot-com was "just get lots of people to visit our site, and we'll figure out how to monetize it later".

Whoops.

I don't think it's a coincedence that all of Matt's examples of successful organizations are all Eclipse Foundation members. RedHat, MySQL, SugarCRM and JBOSS are doing very well by realizing you need to have a sound business model and go beyond a "we'll figure it out later" approach. Moreover, these are organizations that realize the importance of not reinventing the wheel - compete on a common platform and share effort wherever possible.

- Don