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Red Hat CTO Believes Eclipse is at the Tipping Point By Linda Barney, Barney and Associates Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat, presented a dynamic keynote speech at EclipseCon 2004 that provided an overview of important turning points in both history and technology that he called "tipping points", based on Malcolm Gladwell’s 1999 book named "The Tipping Point." Tiemann listed major tipping points in history such as nuclear bombs, the genus bacillus, the flight to the moon, Memex to the World Wide Web in 45 years, the double helix to a complete human genome in 44 years, transistors to the 32-bit processor in 36 years, and Emacs to the next big technical advance. Tiemann believes that we are at a critical tipping point in software development and Open Source and Eclipse will be two of the next major technical tipping points.
A Turning Point in Software So what does it mean for the software business? Software has become more expensive, complex, and harder to maintain. In 2001, the Standish Group estimated that $78 billion is being lost in the software world because of software that lacks capabilities, is incompatible with other software, or is licensed but never deployed. NIST reported in 2002 that there is an estimated $68 billion lost due to software bugs. In 2003, the cost of worms and viruses was estimated at $55 billion. Tiemann indicated that his travels suggest that people have lost their appetite for software because the software they bought doesn’t work. New Law of Software He quotes Victor Hugo’s statement "Invading armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." Tiemann challenged the group, "Maybe it is time for a new law in software, similar to the Moore’s law of hardware. He suggests that a new law should stress that software be fully integrated, always less expensive, more reliable, easily maintained and configured, and secure. Tiemann suggests it is time to make revolutionary software tools, IDEs, framework for plugins, and make it free. He also indicates that computer security has become a major issue and states that security has been built into SE Linux. Eclipse as a Tipping Point During the question and answer session, someone asked Tiemann the difference between Eclipse and NetBeans. Tiemann responded that "Eclipse is truly free and inclusive." He indicated that when he was asked to be a founding member of Eclipse, he told them that he wanted to see Eclipse work with more than just one language. Eclipse is now a strong, multi-language platform that works with Java, C, C++, Perl, and other languages. Tiemann believes that the Eclipse Foundation has begun to build a bridge between communities. This is important because Open Source developers are free to make the tools better, and Java developers benefit from integration, not isolation. Tiemann states, "Eclipse allows the best of Open Source to rise to the top and connect the other communities—that is the tipping point. I believe that the Eclipse tipping point for software has just begun. Software innovation is at the beginning not an end. Eclipse creates a global distribution, and open platform. Eclipse give us a choice to realize the ideas we hold in our minds." |
