I was reminded yet again this week, by a self-proclaimed analyst, that Eclipse is dead. I sure hope that’s true. I mean, I’d like to think that what we have come to know Eclipse to be dies every day and becomes something different (and better!) the next day. That’s the nature of continuous innovation. Otherwise, what we’re stuck with is the status quo, and that’s not going to get anyone much of anywhere.

I was reading an entry in Chris Guillebeau’s blog the other day, and it dawned on me why Eclipse is at risk of missing the next wave of innovation – it no longer has a well-defined enemy. Remember that classic Weird Al song? “I know Darth Vader’s really got you annoyed, but remember if you kill him then you’ll be unemployed”. The battle with that eternal yellow sphere was won some time ago, and it seems unlikely that the other “evil empire” will ever amass an open source ecosystem quite as impressive as the one Eclipse has. So what’s left that’s worth fighting for? United we stand, divided we focus on squeezing every last possible incremental improvement out of our existing “value added” products.

But fear not, all is not lost! The Empire is striking back, albeit under a different guise. Perhaps Eclipse should be renamed to properly reflect what our new war cry ought to be. How about “Dissonance”? Then again, they say that if you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join ’em. This time ’round I’m thinking that’s not such a bad idea… and I’m happy to see that efforts have already begun in that direction. Yeah, come to think of it, maybe “Resonance” is a better name, especially given who discovered the phenomenon and the milestone that Eclipse is about to to achieve next week. 😉