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Java Tools Community Controversy


Top vendors Borland, IBM take a pass on common 'toolability' effort

By Yvonne L. Lee
February 1, 2004 — 
Sun Microsystems Inc. and nine other Java tools vendors in early January formed the Java Tools Community (JTC) to make it easier to create tools for upcoming Java specifications, but the lack of a clear road map left two key Java toolmakers waiting in the wings.

Founding software vendors are BEA Systems Inc., Compuware Corp., Embarcadero Technologies Inc., Iopsis Software, JetBrains Inc., Oracle Corp., Quest Software Inc., SAP AG, SAS Institute Inc. and Sun. Founding customers include Sprint Communications Co. and Verizon Communications. Absent from the new Java Tools Community are Borland Software Corp. and IBM Corp. Sun officials said they approached both companies about joining the JTC.

The group has coined the term "toolability" as its goal. The JTC defines toolability as a measurement of how easy it is to build tools around a particular standard or technology. The group claims that developers will be able to use Java technology more easily to build applications, and that this in turn will increase the rate of Java adoption.

"The only way to work with [the Java Community Process today] is to be a member. What you really want is not just the tool vendors to be involved, but their customers, too," said Ken Oestreich, Sun's Java and software strategy manager.

To that end, the group will consist of both tools vendors and their customers. According to Oestreich, the group seeks to unite three constituencies: JCP members who are tools vendors, tools vendors and extension makers who may not be JCP members, and the customers of both. Tools vendors include anyone that makes Java IDE tools.

"The founding companies are fairly equal in their roles," said Ted Farrell, Oracle's chief architect for application development tools. Those responsibilities include providing content to a JTC Web site (www.javatools.org), getting their customers to the Web site, and posting some new ideas about technology that they'd like to see developed, he said. Oracle built some of the content of the JTC Web site, Farrell said.

"If a [Java Specification Request] hasn't been filed, we may foster a discussion around a particular pain point a customer has mentioned," said Dave Cotter, director of product marketing for BEA's WebLogic. "A core member may take the lead in establishing a JSR."

Although the function of the core members on the site has been spelled out, some don't feel that the group's overall mission and relationship to the Java Community Process has been elucidated.

"The JTC hasn't taken the approach yet to formalize the relationship between the JTC and the [Java Community Process]," said George Paolini, Borland's vice president and general manager of Java solutions. In a statement, Borland said, "There is no mechanism by which the JTC can actually influence any part of the JCP process, without some set of changes to the JCP structure itself. Consequently, Borland has decided to await a formalized road map and process between the JTC and the JCP before making a decision to join."

Because the group was announced two weeks after Sun said it would not join IBM's Eclipse foundation, speculation and published reports indicated that the JTC was Sun's attempt at circumventing Eclipse.

Analyst Rikki Kirzner, research director for application development and deployment at IDC, said she "absolutely" thought the group was targeted toward Eclipse. "Otherwise Sun would have joined Eclipse," she said.

"In the eyes of the public, that's a conclusion you're likely to jump to," said Sun's Oestreich. "In reality, whether they actively participate as a company, they're going to be affected by the outcome because the outcome is going to trickle into the JCP."

One who doesn't see the JTC as an attack on Eclipse is Eclipse chairman and IBM employee Skip McGaughey. "The Java Tools Community is about requirements," McGaughey said. "It's an effort by a series of vendors and users to consolidate requirements in the Java Community Process-requirements that establish the specifications that Eclipse then ends up implementing."

Eclipse is not a member of the JTC. "Eclipse is in the process of forming this independent organization and any effort to join independent entities has to be a decision of the new board," McGaughey said.


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