News

Eclipse to fund university research

• By Michael W. Bucken
• August 21, 2002

The Eclipse consortium moved this week to expand on earlier IBM efforts with the creation of the Eclipse Technology Project, described by the group as an open-source project that supports research, education and engineering initiatives undertaken to integrate multiple computing technologies using the so-called Eclipse Platform.

IBM had earlier moved to spread the Eclipse tool integration platform into university computer labs by pledging funds to provide equipment and expertise for projects that utilize the open source technologies. The Eclipse consortium was created late last year by officials from Borland, IBM, Merant, QNX Software Systems, Rational Software, RedHat, SuSE, TogetherSoft and WebGain. The group currently claims support from about 150 software suppliers.

''Eclipse is expanding its focus to include forward-looking research into areas important to software developers,'' said IBM’s Skip McGaughey, chairman of the Eclipse Board of Stewards.

To date, officials said, Eclipse Fellowships will fund research projects at Oregon Health and Science University, University of Aarhus in Denmark, Queensland University of Technology and Monash University in Australia, Carleton University in Ottawa, the University of British Columbia, the University of Washington, Northeastern University and Ecoles des Mines de Nantes in  France.

Dwight Deugo, associate computer science professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, will oversee the effort at his school. ''It is common for developers to think of a software development tool as an environment that enables them to write code, such as Java class files, and share it through a shared repository,'' said Deugo, also a columnist for Application Development Trends magazine. ''While this is possible with the open-source Eclipse platform, the plug-in based framework will enable developers to expand on the notion of development tools. Eclipse is the platform for any and every software tool.''

For details of the activities of the Eclipse Technology Project, including active sub-projects, click on http://www.eclipse.org/org/index.html.

University departments, researchers and universities interested in Eclipse Fellowships should contact the Eclipse Technology Project Management Committee through the guidelines posted at http://www.eclipse.org/technology/index.html.