Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Development
    • Development

    Eclipse: Behind the Name

    By
    Darryl K. Taft
    -
    May 20, 2005
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Whats in a name?

      Back in 2003, when Sun Microsystems Inc. was considering whether it might join the then soon-to-be-independent Eclipse Foundation, one of the key concerns, aside from technical issues, was the name Eclipse.

      Sun said it would not join an organization named Eclipse, and the foundation agreed to change the name. The Santa Clara, Calif., company didnt want to join an organization whose name was perceived as encouraging the demise of Sun, company executives said at the time.

      It turned out Sun wasnt the target of the Eclipse moniker, though. In his keynote at the EclipseCon 2005 conference in March, Lee Nackman, chief technology officer and vice president of Design, Construction, and Test Tools at IBMs Rational Software division, said Microsoft Corp. was actually the company IBM wanted to “eclipse” and was the true object of IBMs attention.

      “Our target was Microsoft,” Nackman said. “Microsoft was clearly the market leader and was on a path to become the dominant tools platform. It was clear thered be competition for developers… So around 1998 we felt, key to the competition around application servers and middleware, we needed to bring developers to Java-based middleware … IBMs middleware business depended on bringing developers to our Java-based middleware.”

      In early 2001, he said, IBM “saw continued strengthening of Visual Studio and growth of the Microsoft ecosystem.”

      /zimages/3/28571.gifSome developers gave Microsoft low marks for its Visual Studio presentation at EclipseCon. Click here to read more.

      Moreover, IBM also sought to solve the then-lingering problems of IBMs then-fragmented tools strategy and foster a partner ecosystem of its own, Nackman said.

      “We decided to do what it would take to be competitive with Visual Studio on Windows,” he said.

      So the target then was and now is Microsoft, not Sun, he said.

      But the name seems so perfect a knock against Sun. How could it not be? Well, according to a source, some of the early Eclipse originators had a retreat where one of the themes was the universe and many code names emerged involving celestial themes. Eclipse stuck. And while Sun was not necessarily the primary target, “these were really smart people, and I dont think the visualization and competitive implication was lost,” a source said.

      However, having chosen the name, that battle was not yet over.

      “A lot of people said Eclipse was a really bad name,” Nackman said. In fact, IBMs lawyers advised against the name because it was already widely used—there was the Mitsubishi Eclipse automobile, Eclipse gum, and a girls soccer team in Illinois named the Eclipse that owned the Eclipse.org domain name.

      So in November 2001, IBM established an open-source licensing and operations model and bought the Eclipse.org name from the soccer team with an offer they couldnt refuse.

      “Eclipse had a good ring to it and we liked the idea of eclipsing Visual Studio,” Nackman said.

      And while that is still but a notion, the Eclipse open-source development environment has gone on to eclipse Suns NetBeans open-source development environment in terms of community support and overall ecosystem, if nothing else.

      For its part, Sun said part of its reason for not joining Eclipse was its commitment to keep NetBeans independent.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis in programming environments and developer tools.

      Avatar
      Darryl K. Taft
      Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×