The Eclipse Foundation has joined the Java Community Process, according to sources close to the organization.
A formal announcement is scheduled for the week of Jan. 15, the source told eWEEK. A quick check of the JCP membership list confirmed that the Foundation is now listed as a member.
Historically, the two development groups have not worked or played well with each other. Both, however, have had a common goal: an open-source, inexpensive Java IDE (integrated development environment) that can be used on multiple platforms to produce programs for various types of computers.
As Marc Erickson, then communications manager for the Eclipse Java IDE project, said in early 2003, “Developers need and want tools that can deal with an increasing complex computing world while letting them work with a single tool kit.”
Proponents of a unified, open-source Java IDE also believe that such an IDE would boost Javas fortunes by making development easier and more competitive with Microsofts popular Visual Studio .Net. As is so often the case, however, two companies, Sun Microsystems and IBM, took two different, and incompatible, roads to creating a Java IDE.
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