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Roumen: Why Doesn't Sun Want to Join Eclipse Foundation

Ok... this question keeps coming all the time. Everytime we announce a new release of NetBeans someone asks it. So in case somebody asks you, you can send them a link to this blog entry. Thanks, Gregg, for summarizing this.

Question: These Sun developer tools have some great features, but why try to do it all? Why not just join the Eclipse Foundation and have one focused effort to use for building tools? In other words, why couldn't all of Sun's leading-edge tools features just be delivered as Eclipse plugins?

A: There are several reasons:

He gave six reasons. And every one of them is wrong. Wrong not in the technical sense, but in the sense that it won't win anybody over to their side who are not already there.

I'm fairly open minded to the new version of NetBeans. I had a little issue about their web site using the wrong license, but that seems to have been fixed with the 5.0 beta's and with the final release. I just downloaded and install NetBeans 5.0. And it looks great. (Although the new class wizard still generates a no-arg constructor, which, if you think about it, does more harm than good.)

Here's my reaction to Sun's reasoning. (The fact I'm still thinking NetBeans as a Sun product rather than an independent Open Source product may be indication of the ill of NetBeans marketing.)

"SWT is not WORA"

This is so 1997. WORA, while a good ideal, hurts Java as an ideology. The first round of WORA war got us a Microsoft technology (.NET) that competes with Java. The second round of WORA war got us an IBM technology (SWT) that competes with Swing. I'm not sure Sun wants to fight another WORA war. For what? To lose the hand held market place?

"Look at this bug (SWT/Mac Issues)"

Don't look at other peoples bugs. Look at your own. I reported many bugs to Sun. Took them months to just acknowledge them. Some has gone on years without being fixed.

"Ours is one big bundle (Theirs you have to piece together)"

My version of Eclipse comes with my operating system installation with everything configured just right. Even for C++ or Python development.

"Look at what people built with our platform"

They look great! So?

"We are 31% market share, and people download us"

J++ were, like, what, 85%. I've downloaded NetBeans many times in 2005. I actually downloaded it three times in the past two weeks (rc1, rc2, and final.) I did not download Eclipse this year at all. It came with my operating system distribution.

"Competition is a good thing"

You bet it is.

In conclusion

Come on guys. You are selling an Open Source technology. Tell us what it can do and how it does it better than anybody else's open source or commercial products. If it fulfills a need, people with that need will use it. Bashing Eclipse gets you guys nowhere.

WORA is a winning technical proposition, but a lousy marketing slogan with a losing track record. Say it one more time, I'll disable Java in my browser. Oh wait, it already doesn't work. (There is no 64-bit browser plugin in the amd64 JDK.)

The best marketing approach for NetBeans? Make a non-paid, non-Sun, non-NetBeans core team member come out and say good things publicly about NetBeans. I know someone who did exactly that.