Eclipse Gains Local, Interstellar Support

April 1, 2005 – The Eclipse Foundation today has announced 14 new strategic members, encompassing leading IT vendors, major technology consumers and at least one alien race.

Many of the new members will be extending existing Eclipse projects. For example, the Sesame Workshop will lead development of a new cookie-handling format for the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools project.

“Frankly, we like working with BIRT,” smiled Ernie, the affable spokesperson for the Sesame Workshop, “because it reminds us of our friend Bert. Bert likes cookies.”

“This open-source project is sponsored by the letters A and F, and the number 5,” added Ernie.

Getting involved in the Eclipse Foundation’s infrastructure challenges are Plumbers and Steamfitters Local No. 43 and Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 16. “It takes a lot of plumbing and ducting to make enterprise computing work,” said shop steward Fergus McEwan, who will represent the unions on the foundation’s board of directors.

McEwan indicated that the two locals will host membership rallies for Eclipse developers.

“It’s time to bring the power of collective bargaining into the open-source community,” he explained, “to improve wages, working conditions and job security.”

One new member fits into its own category: Strategic Warrior. According to Commander Klotha, the Klingon Imperial Navy has pledged to preserve the honor of all Eclipse developers, committers and consumers, while also donating battle-tested source code to support two new projects.

The Eclipse Test and Performance Tools for Deployment of Disruptor Based Techniques in Combat, or ETaPTfDoDBTiC, will be used to create open-source frameworks for programming and tuning real-time system controls for high-intensity phased photonic beam emission systems. Meanwhile, the new pIqaD project will seek to port the Eclipse IDE’s user interface to become compatible with the Klingonaase script and triangular display devices used on distant Qo’noS.

The Imperial fleet also will propose a Stellar Modeling Framework project to be added to the Eclipse Modeling Framework and newly formed Graphical Editing Framework. The SMF would be incubated within the Eclipse Technology Project, and would have many applications in sixth-dimensional cartography, tachyon flux computation, warp-speed navigation and Organian peace treaty negotiations, said the commander.

“You have good software tools on this planet,” praised Klotha. “Kai Eclipse! Qapla’!”