Embedded software house LynuxWorks is poised to give another boost to
Eclipse next week, when it unveils a new suite of tools built around the
open-source framework.
LynuxWorks will make its announcement at the 2004 electronicaUSA
show in San Francisco, which will run from March 29 through April 1.
Lynuxworks’ new tool, which will run under Linux and Solaris, will serve as
a development environment for users of the company’s BlueCat Linux 5.0
operating systems. Bluecat is billed by LynuxWorks as the first commercially
available embedded OS based on the new Linux 2.6 kernel.
Though often thought of as a software tool itself, Eclipse is actually a
Java-based software “metaplatform.” As such, it’s meant to serve as a
foundation developers can use to create open-source software tools.
LynuxWorks’ announcement marks another real-world endorsement for Eclipse as
it begins to move out into the marketplace in a serious way.
Last month, Wind River
said it would replace its longtime Tornado software-development
environment with a platform based on Eclipse. That offering has been dubbed
the WindPower 2.0 integrated development environment (IDE).
Though the Eclipse effort was forged in 1999, it is still in its relative
infancy. Eclipse was jump-started with some $40 million in funding from IBM,
which also spun it off as a stand-alone operation. Eclipse 1.0 debuted in
October, 2001; work is currently underway on version 3.0.
The Eclipse group itself has released a integrated development environment
for Java programs, but it’s been left to third parties such as Wind River
and LynuxWorks to roll tools targeted at specific operating systems. Rather
then full-blown environments, many vendors are looking at building smaller
“plug-ins,” which will add specific functions to Eclipse.
Most recently, Eclipse has put the finishing touches on establishing itself
as a standalone consortium. To that end, Eclipse earlier this month finished
setting up its independent board of
directors.
Corporate members of the Eclipse group include Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard,
Hitachi, SAP,
Sybase,
and MontaVista, among others.
