--- title: "Crazy Ivan's Moustache: Sun, OSS everything, and IDE plugin JSRs" date: 2005-12-02T23:18:46Z modified: 2005-12-02T23:18:46Z permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/crazy-ivans-moustache-sun-oss-everything-and-ide-plugin-jsrs/" type: post status: publish excerpt: "" wpid: 413 categories: - Uncategorized timestamp: 2005-12-02T23:18:46Z tags: - Uncategorized --- Come on [Johnny](http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/johnnyl)…. if you want to be a cossack you’ll need to grow your whiskers back. I don’t have much to say about Sun open sourcing more componentry other than to say the strategy makes sense, but the proof will be in the deployments not the announcements. [Ian Skerrett](http://ianskerrett.blogspot.com/), director of marketing at Eclipse had this to say about Sun’s new approach, commenting on my blog about [Sun putting the dot in Web 2.0](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001123.html). > Before Sun can really claim victory in the Participation Age they need to figure out how to work with other software vendors. Volume is important but they way you get real volume is to have other vendors participate and contribute. There is obviously some “history” between Eclipse and Sun, but Ian’s comments should not be discounted out of hand. After all, Eclipse itself is an example of an ISV driven architecture of participation. Ian knows something about community building and its importance. I just wanted to make my response to his comment explicit. Pervasive [just announced it is supporting dtrace and Postgres with Sun](http://www.pervasive.com/company/press/releases_show.asp?cid=575). You may not know the company but Pervasive has a ton of small ISVs in its network (it used to be Btrieve). Meanwhile IBM Software Group (begrudgingly) supports Solaris 10. One point to be clear about is a difference in the model, we’re talking about a possible industry inflexion point, which Sun is trying to finesse. If the new “application wave” involves hosted services not just traditional packaged software companies, it does make some sense for Sun to focus attention there–hockey, puck, ice, you know the drill. All in all Ian makes a good central point. Its all about the ecosystem. I am sure Jonathan Schwartz would agree. I have said it before and I will say it again though. Sun should start talking to Eclipse, while maintaining its NetBeans progress. Now that would be a Crazy Ivan move… \[if you want to know what a Crazy Ivan move is then read [Johnny’s blog](http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/johnnyl?entry=is_crazy_ivan_really_crazy)\]. So lets have a [JSR 198](http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/results?id=3399) party. It is kind of funny to see BEA gently arguing against the need for an IDE plug in spec: > While it does appear that JSR 198 can be implemented by multiple IDEs as advertised by its advocates, we remain concerned that the JCP would choose to endorse a new technology when a pervasive alternative exists in the marketplace At best this sends a confusing message to IDE plug-in developers. But then again, BEA now has Eclipse religion. There is nothing worse than a reformed proprietary IDE player… its like giving up smoking… Fujitsu, Borland and Google didn’t vote. Google and IDEs? Now there is a question mark. Another spec to check out is [JSR 273](http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=273). Jetlag is a bad thing- i can’t think of how to sign off. Ah yes I know…. its time to get back to my baby son after being away for a couple of days. The IBM SWG write up can wait until Monday. Have a great weekend everyone. standard disclaimer – BEA, IBM, Eclipse and Sun are all clients of RedMonk. I have also done paid work with Pervasive before.