22

22 is the number of people who last year registered for EclipseCon on December 31, New Years Eve.  Each year New Years Eve is one of the most popular days to register for EclipseCon since it is the last day for the very early registration prices.

This year, people should register before New Years Eve and spend December 31 relaxing with family and friends.   If you are going to EclipseCon, why not just register now; it takes less than five minutes.

Happy New Year!

Announcing the Eclipse Banking Day in London

I am pleased to announce we are organizing an Eclipse Banking Day in London on February 12.   As with similar events in Frankfurt and New York, the goal is to encourage senior technical people from the financial services community to share their experiences of using Eclipse and open source software.

We have another great agenda that features Eclipse experts and technical leaders from different financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Barclays, la Caixa (a large Spanish Bank) and Bank of East Asia.  The banks are doing some really interesting things with Eclipse technology, so it is great they are willing to share their experiences.

There is no cost to attend the event but you need to pre-register and you need to work at a financial institution.  Special thanks to Actuate, itemis, Sybase and WeigleWilczek for sponsoring this event and allowing us to offer it free of charge to attendees.

Happy Holidays

The holiday season is close upon us.  The staff at the Eclipse Foundation in Ottawa would like to extend their best wishes to everyone in the Eclipse community.

As many of you know, there are a lot of great people that work at the Foundation.  I’ve asked each of them to extend their own holiday wishes and wish for 2009 in this Holiday video.   Unfortunately, I could not video the great people in Portland or Germany but I am sure they extend their holiday greetings too.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

JavaOne Call for Papers

The deadline for the JavaOne Call for Papers is next Friday, December 19, 2008.   I am sure lots of people are focused on EclipseCon but it would be great to get some Eclipse talks submited and accepted at JavaOne.

Recap of Eclipse Banking Day

The Eclipse Banking Day in NYC finished up as a great success.  We had approximately 75 people in attendance; representing 14 different financial institutions and 10 ISVs that target the financial industry.  I really enjoyed the format of having presenters from the Eclipse and banking community talking about what is possible with Eclipse and banking.

I particularly enjoyed the speakers from the banking community.   I hope to have the presentations posted over the next couple of days on the wiki.  [Update: Most presentations are now posted. ]  Some highlights:

- Morgan Stanley is doing some amazing stuff with their MODeX solution.   They are creating some advanced model driven techniques for their financial institution.  UBS also did a short presentation on their use of EMF for modeling their applications.

- J.P. Morgan and RBC Capital Market each presented their respective Eclipse RCP integration platforms.  What really struck me was how both organizations were using open source development techniques within their internal development organizations.

- Two ISVs presented their RCP based products: 1) Fidelity National Information Systems has an teller application based on RCP, and 2) Marketcetera has an open source trading platform that has an RCP based GUI front-end.   Nice to see.

Thanks to everyone who attended and spoke.  Special thanks to Actuate and Sybase for being sponsors and Morgan Stanley for hosting the event.   Lets hope this is the start of a banking community at Eclipse.

[Update:  Check out Ed Merks excellent summary of the event.]

btw, we have tentatively set a date of February 12 for an Eclipse Banking day in London.  I hope to have more details next week.

Nominations Now Open for the Eclipse Community Awards

Each year the Eclipse Community Awards recognize individuals, products and technology that make Eclipse such a great community.  Nominations are now open for the 2009 edition.

For the individual awards, anyone can nominate, via bugzilla, an individual in three categories:

• Nominations for Top Ambassador Award
• Nominations for Top Committer Award
• Nominations for Top Contributor Award

For the products and technology, there are six categories and a nomination form that needs to be completed.  The six categories are:

1. Best Commercial Eclipse-Based Developer Tool
2. Best Open Source Eclipse-Based Developer Tool
3. Best Commercial Equinox Application
4. Best Open Source Equinox Application
5. Best Commercial RCP Application
6. Best Open Source RCP Application

Deadline for nominations is January 30, 2008.  Awards will be announced March 23 at EclipseCon.

CEO Guide to Open Source Software

Business Week just published the ‘CEO Guide to Open Source Software’ and let me say it is pretty lame.  I can only hope that most CEO’s will look further than this report to be educated about Open Source Software.

<rant>

The report is essentially a rehash of the messages from the VC funded ‘open source companies’ that are trying to ride the open source hype wave.  It features the usual speaking points: open source business vs the enterprise solutions, open source lowers user cost, and to keep up with current trends ‘open source companies will do better in the recession‘.   New this time is that open source companies have missed the mark, the model is broken, now CEOs should look to ‘new kinds of software companies that are focused on collaboration.’

This insanity must STOP.  Open source can’t be defined in these terms.  Open source is not broken

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad the companies mentioned are successful. However, they are successful and will continue to be successful because they are delivering value to their customers.  These companies act, behave and are small startup ISVs that are no different than any other ISV.  They will fail if they no longer provide value to their customers.  Open source software is not helping them do that.

Most software companies now use open source software to help create value for their customers.   The ‘open source companies’ are not unique.  They are claiming to be unique since most lead their own open source project but who cares?  There a thousands of successful open source projects.  The key challenge for any ISV is providing value that customers will pay for.  Open source vendors are no different.

So lets be clear:

1. Companies are turning to open source alternatives because they solve a specific problem and the existing commercial solutions are no longer providing the incremental value.  However, there is still a tons of value created by ISVs, they just now have to work a bit harder to define and communicate it.

2. Large enterprise software vendors are always challenged by small startup companies; a lot of new technology and innovation gets developed this way.  Open source does not change this.  It might make it a bit easier, due to lower barriers to entry, but large enterprise software vendors have also embraced an open source strategy.  As Savio Rodrigues as been saying:

Open source isn’t going to kill established software vendors. Open source must absolutely be a component of every software vendor’s strategy. This isn’t news either. I’ve only been beating that drum for two-plus year

3. All companies will be impacted by the recession.  As Dan Lyons recently wrote:

True, some companies gain share during downturns. But most don’t. Most just find that sucky times, um, suck. But times like these provide a rare opportunity for flacks to shine with outrageous lies and made-up stories.

It is too bad that Business Week has taken a very narrow view of open source software, and in my opinion the less interesting and sustainable view.  CEO’s definitely need to understand open source software and development but there is much more to it than the view that is presented in this report.

</rant>

So if I were a CEO looking to understand open source software, what would I recommend?

First, go talk to your smartest developer(s). Guaranteed they will be able to guide you through the open source landscape.  Ask them what communities they participate in and how those communities operate.

Second, ask your IT management team what is their strategy for driving value in their organization by using or participating in open source communities.

Third, if your lawyers say no to the strategy, go back to #1, there is a solution.