With the next major release of Eclipse, codenamed Europa, available on eclipse.org, Innoopract, an Eclipse specialist and provider of the Yoxos Eclipse Distribution, announced a new portal that simplifies the process for creating and downloading custom Eclipse downloads.

Db4objects, the open source object database, has tied up with Prosyst, which reportedly owns 50% of the commercial OSGi market, meaning db4objects gets a crack at a swat of automotive, mobile carrier, house alarm and such like implementations. Db4object gives widgets persistence, which means users are less likely to lose data. It's adapted ProSyst's native Java object database to OSGi specifications and released an OSGi-specific distribution. ProSyst, in turn, has adopted db4o as the standard object persistence package in its mBedded Server Professional Edition and as an optional package in its Equinox Edition.

For those who aren't familiar with Ingres, let me outline where Ingres came from and what the technology is all about. The Ingres technology has been around for quite some time. It dates back to the early '70s at UC Berkeley, and was a project started by Michael Stonebraker, Eugene Wong, and a number of other very talented folks at Cal Berkeley. They are essentially perceived as the fathers of relational database technology. In the '80s, Ingres went from being an open source project, available under the Berkeley license to anybody who had the money for a source code tape, to a commercial entity, a company called Relational Technology, Inc.

Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, has been kind enough to answer some questions for Enterprise Open Source Magazine. Rather than rattle off the usual ones about the name, about why Swing wasn't used, or how much influence IBM still has, Mike has fielded questions on some more current and topical subjects, as well as given us his insights onto the future. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us Mike.

SYS-CON Events has created a hands-on, immersive learning experience for all Web developers who want to know the how, what, and why of the tools and concepts behind AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), the popular user-interface approach to creating Rich Internet Applications. AJAXWorld University AJAX Bootcamp is a compelling, intensive, one-day, hands-on training program that will teach Web developers, Web designers, and other Web professionals how to build high-quality AJAX applications from beginning to end.

ILOG has announced ILOG JViews 8, the latest version of ILOG's award-winning Java graphics tools suite that targets more users in the user interface collaboration chain - from developers and graphic designers to application administrators - and eases the creation of supervision and monitoring applications.

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 'Call for Papers' for the Real-World Java Seminar is now open. The largest Java developer event on the East Coast, the Real-World Java Seminar is a one-day event with three concurrent tracks and more than 30 sessions, and is packed with technical presentations delivered by the Java industry experts. Attending this event will allow delegates to take a fresh look at the architecture of the projects they are working on now, and can serve as a roadmap for their further development as Java professionals.

Other than Flash Player, ClearBI does not require any additional software install on the client side. At the time of this writing, ClearBI is the only professional reporting solution on the market of rich Internet applications developed using Adobe Flex and Java. ClearBI is available in two versions: ClearBI Plugin and ClearBI End-User.

After a 7 year hiatus, ColdFusion once again has an interactive debugger, and this time it is built on top of Eclipse (and uses the same debugging interface as Flex Builder, and other Eclipse plug-ins). If you are interested in taking the debugger for a spin, here's what you need to know to get started: First of all, you need ColdFusion 8. If you don't have it yet, get it!

The Real-World Java Seminar is a one-day event that's packed with technical presentations delivered by the Java industry experts. Attending this event will allow you to take a fresh look at the architecture of the projects you're working on now and can serve as a roadmap for your further development as a Java professional. The largest Java developer event on the East Coast, Real-World Java Seminar will offer sponsorship and exhibit opportunities to the leading Java technology companies. Additional information on sponsorship and exhibit opportunities can be obtained by e-mail at events(at) sys-con.com or by phone at 201 802-3021.

This webinar explains how Eclipse developers can use the Eclipse Data Tools Platform as a platform for rapid innovation, and combine their existing Eclipse skills with the Eclipse DTP and the Ingres DBMS to produce rich data based applications that seamlessly scale from the desktop to the data center. This webinar is ideal for Java developers who want to immediately become productive writing applications that slot right into an SOA architecture.

JavaOne starts next week, and most of the Java developers will be watching closely what's new and exciting will be announced in the tried, true and aging Java. But my today's column is about books that will be sold at JavaOne. Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex & Java. We spent a year writing this advanced book, and I'm pretty pleased with the result this is not one of these shallow books that repeat API descriptions of vendors manuals. In this book we are sharing how to design and build rich Internet enterprise applications in an object-oriented way with such great and complimentary technologies as Flex and J2EE. You can get this book at the booth of SYS-CON Media.

I read a pointer to this on /. the other day and mentally filed it to go back and see what the fuss was all about. I finally had time tonight. Bottom line, Mr. Gould does not get it. Clearly the IBM press release is about making it so Lotus Notes folks are not stuck with Windows. Their client works in a more open environment. It's all about getting rid of Windows for IBM.

This article is the second in a series on developing an application using Eclipse BIRT Engine APIs. It focuses on developing an application using the Eclipse BIRT Design Engine API. The last article focused on the Eclipse BIRT Report Engine API.

JasperForge.org is an online developer site that provides free access to software and tools to build, deploy, and extend open source BI software. Projects range from developer tools to integration toolkits to localization powered by an interactive online translation tool, JasperBabylon, where more than 30 different translation projects are underway. Some of the more popular JasperForge.org projects include the Drupal Bridge for JasperReports, iReport with Hibernate, Oracle Stored Procedures, Reporting and OLAP Analysis Tools for Bugzilla, and Jasper4Eclipse, an iReport plug-in project for eclipse.

Virtualization Conference & Expo is the leading event covering the booming market of Virtualization for the enterprise, with experts on server, storage, application and desktop technologies. The conference will contain multiple sessions on how to improve application efficiency and lower costs by leveraging network and computing resources. Combined with SOA, Virtualization will help you take your applications and platforms to the next level. At the first international Virtualization Conference & Expo, you will hear from industry experts already out in the field on how to use Virtualization to increase uptime; accelerate storage and application speed; lower costs, improve utilization; and make your infrastructure strong, flexible and secure.

Questions as usual flowed in abundantly to Emma K McGrattan when she gave her live Webcast on SYS-CON.TV on 'Eclipse DTP as a Platform for Rapid Innovation,' a talk that showcased the passion surrounding Ingres's open-source activities, and that showed McGrattan herself to be as dedicated and knowledgeable an advocate of open source technologies as you can get.

The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is the GUI toolkit used by Eclipse. The same folks that worked on the Common Widget (CW) library for IBM/Smalltalk developed it, this time for Java. Now, it's maintained as part of the Eclipse Platform project and distributed under an open source license, the Eclipse Public License (EPL). One key design point of SWT is that it uses native functionality on each operating system and, at the same time, presents a common, portable API. Joe Winchester, Desktop Java Editor for Java Developer's Journal, asked Steve Northover (SWT Team Lead) recently whether he'd be happy to answer some questions about SWT and, after talking to his colleagues and a few developers, here is the result.

I recently came home from three months in Antarctica. As a software engineer, Antarctica was the last place I expected to be. I was there as part of the ANDRILL project, a multinational collaboration comprised of scientists, educators, students, technicians, drillers, and support staff from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States.

The OSGi Alliance announced it has released the mobile specification for OSGi Service Platform Release 4 (R4). This specification received final approval from the Java Community Process as the specification for JSR 232 'Mobile Operational Management.'

QNX Software Systems today announced its QNX(R) Momentics(R) IDE received the Eclipse Community Award for Best Commercial Eclipse-based Developer Tool at EclipseCon 2007. In addition, Doug Schaefer, senior tools developer at QNX and Eclipse CDT project lead, was selected as a finalist in the Top Ambassador category.

Rally Software Development Corp., the leading on-demand provider of Agile software life cycle management solutions, and Tasktop Technologies, the company formed by the creators of the Mylar open source project, today announced a partnership to build Rally's next-generation of support for the growing number of developers and testers working within the Eclipse IDE.

'Our goal when developing Helmi's open source product,' said Jorden Woods, CEO of Helmi Technologies in the U.S. 'was to allow companies to leverage their development team's knowledge base and shorten the learning curve to maximize productivity.' Woods was speaking as Helmi announced that it was joining the Eclipse Foundation as an Add-In Provider.

The Eclipse platform is an Open Source, integrated system of application development tools that you implement and extend using a plug-in interface. Eclipse provides a set of core plug-ins that configures the basic services for the platform's framework. A platform developer can build and integrate new tools in this application development system.

Intalio,the Open Source BPMS Company announced the donation of its trailblazing BPMN process modeler to the Eclipse Foundation. The technology is now available under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) and is part of the SOA Tools Platform (STP) project.

Palamida, a provider of software assurance management products and audit services, announced a partnership with Innoopract, a provider of Eclipse-based add-on tools, consulting, support, training and open source distribution solutions.

The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the implementation of a universal software development platform, announced it has become a member of three industry specification groups: Java Community Process (JCP), Object Management Group (OMG) and the OSGi Alliance. The Eclipse Foundation has joined these organizations to further promote the relationship between open standards and open source implementatio ns.

TIBCO Software Inc. , a leading business integration and process management software company that enables real-time business, today announced that the latest generation of TIBCO Business Studio(TM), version 1.1 is available for free.

QNX Software Systems has released QNX Momentics IDE 4, a flexible new integrated development environment that according to the company 'combines innovative profiling tools with the latest Eclipse technologies to slash debug times and accelerate the optimization of complex embedded systems.'

JSEclipse is a new plugin for the Eclipse environment that helps developers code JavaScript faster and with no errors. With JSEclipse, you can complete a variety of tasks, from editing small sections of code to working with the next big AJAX library or developing plug-ins for a product that embeds JavaScript snippets.

By now, you've probably heard about Eclipse as 'the Open Source Java IDE' (www.eclipse.org). Today, several companies have looked past the Java IDE plug-ins provided as part of Eclipse, and are creating products that use Eclipse as a tool integration platform, both inside and outside of the Java arena. But what about using royalty-free, Open Source Eclipse technology as a general-purpose application framework for your next desktop, fat client, or embedded application? With the support provided by the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) and the embedded version of the same (eRCP) the idea is certainly not as strange as it first sounds.

After nearly a year in development, CFEclipse 1.3 has finally been released! It can be downloaded using Eclipse's Update Software feature, following the instructions in the Download page.

Ingres Corporation, the leading business open source database company, today announced the availability of a new Ingres Eclipse Bundle for Java developers worldwide. The new bundle contains all of the components needed to successfully build and deploy next-generation applications with Eclipse, a popular open source development framework, on Ingres 2006, Ingres's latest release of its open source database.

The Eclipse Foundation today announced that Actuate, BEA Systems, Business Objects, IBM and Klocwork have signed on as Gold Sponsors for EclipseCon 2007, the annual conference that brings together the Eclipse community. Gold Sponsorship is the highest level of sponsorship for the conference. The third annual EclipseCon will be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, Calif., March 5-8, 2007. 'EclipseCon is one of my favorite events for the Eclipse community. It is a great opportunity to learn new things, meet new people and reacquaint oneself with the Eclipse ecosystem,' explained Mike Milinkovich, executive director, Eclipse Foundation. 'We are thrilled to have our Gold Sponsors invest the time and resource in EclipseCon. Their support is important to the overall success of the conference.'

ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc., a member of the ACCESS CO., LTD., group of companies, is participating in EclipseCon 2007, March 5 - 8, as a Silver Sponsor. The conference is being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. Located in booth 600, ACCESS will be showcasing the ACCESS Linux Platform Development Suite (SDK & Developer Tools) for ACCESS Linux Platform(TM) v1.0. The Company will also demonstrate a number of applications running on ACCESS Linux Platform.

The Eclipse Foundation today announced three new project milestones that extend the Eclipse platform for Ajax applications and dynamic languages. The three projects include the Eclipse Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), the Eclipse Ajax Toolkit Framework (ATF) and the Eclipse Dynamic Language Toolkit (DLTK). These projects provide innovative new Eclipse-based technology to be utilized by Ajax developers and developers using dynamic languages such as Python, Ruby and Tcl.

Nexaweb Technologies, Inc., provider of theleading standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web2.0 (EW2.0) applications, today announced its participation at EclipseCon2007, March 5-8 in Santa Clara. In addition to being a Silver sponsor ofthe four-day event, Nexaweb will take center stage by joining a panel ofindustry leaders to discuss Eclipse's role in the proliferation of Ajax inthe developer community.

Krugle, Inc., the code search engine for developers, today announced the beta release of Krugle Eclipse, a new code search plugin for Eclipse, the world's most popular open source development platform. Krugle Eclipse enables enterprise developers to easily search and browse open source code from Krugle's comprehensive index, including code from such popular resources as SourceForge, the Yahoo! Developer Network, and Microsoft's CodePlex.

Furthering its commitment to Eclipse, BEA Systems, Inc. , a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, today announced plans to continue to ramp up its efforts and provide even greater support for the Eclipse platform over the next several months.

Today, at the EclipseCon Conference, Oracle , a newly appointed Eclipse Board Member and Strategic Developer, announced it will donate its award winning Java persistence framework, Oracle(R) TopLink, to the open source community. In addition, Oracle announced the proposal of a new Eclipse project to deliver a comprehensive persistence platform based on the contribution of Oracle TopLink, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, source code and test cases.