Java tools companies on the JCP approval committee gave Oracle the green light to pursue its standard Java IDE extensions, but said they expected that any new software would not be restrictive in its usage. Borland and SAP, which are both members of Eclipse, voiced cautious acceptance of the JSR 198 effort. "Borland continues to have concerns about the scope and constraints implied by this JSR," according to the voting record. "But we do recognise the broad industry desire for development in this area. We would be interested in seeing how these concerns could be mitigated by further refinement." IBM, too, voiced its support under the understanding that the standard will not make the SWT front-end development technology incompatible with the Java standard, said Bernie Spang, director of WebSphere Studio marketing at IBM. The other sensitive issue was a question regarding whether development tools for other languages could easily plug into Java tools. "A performance testing tool vendor... may have Java tools that work with other systems and other languages. We want to have a single standard that extends the Eclipse IDE. We don't want separate rules for Java," Spang said. "It doesn't help to have a standard for Java IDEs, but have it supported only by a few companies." Development tool companies have clearly recognised the trend among programmers to draw on several applications when they write code. Sun and BEA each sponsor programs that, like Eclipse, invite third-party developers to tie their products into their respective development applications. Although it is unlikely that Sun and BEA will join Eclipse because of IBM's influence, Oracle joined Eclipse last month, in part to ensure that Oracle-specific tools will work within Eclipse. But the chances that the Oracle-led attempt at a single standard will heal the rift among Java backers are slim because of conflict around Swing/AWT and the Eclipse-favored SWT approach, said O'Grady. "Oracle is certainly overstepping their bounds with regard to their ambitions in Eclipse if they believe that they can single-handedly repair the divide between Eclipse and Swing. It is certainly a good thing that they're trying to move to a single standard, but the fact remains that Eclipse is the initiative with more momentum right now," O'Grady said. Thomas Murphy, an analyst at the Meta Group, said he doesn't expect the debate to be resolved for some time. "Sun has lost a lot of control over where Java is going, and IBM, in particular, has made a strong play with the (Eclipse) open-source project to work outside the JSR to add stuff to Java," Murphy said. "I see Oracle as trying to play the peacemaker role... (but) it will take at least six months to see where it's really going and how the affinities line up."
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