Borland Releases JBuilder to Eclipse

ricochet81 writes "The Register is reporting that Borland has released the base version of JBuilder as open source on Eclipse! Is this just the next company to use open source as part of a marketing tool, akin to Sun, IBM and Oracle's opensource IDE push? Is the future of enterprise IDE open?"

Comments

Re:Delphi too, please

[fm6]

Lazarus is just an OS alternative to the Delphi libraries. If you add Open Pascal, you do have an alternative for hacking out Delphi code. But without an OS equivalent of the Delphi IDE, your missing the one component everybody buys Delphi to use.

I can't see the usual set of motley OS volunteers creating and maintaining an alternative to Delphi. I used to help write the Delphi API documentation, and I can't begin the convey what a massive effort it is just to maintain that product. Not something you can do without the backing of somebody with deep pockets. If Borland chooses to get behind an OS version of Delphi (as they now have with JBuilder) it might be a different matter. Though it's worth noting that their previous attempt to open source a produce (Interbase) did not go well. Frankly, I don't think Borland's notoriously factious corporate culture makes them a good partner in an OS project.

Re: Mods on crack - again!

[tomhudson]

To the idiot who modded my original post that it means Borland is dying as a troll, you obviously didn't read the fucking article

From the VERY FIRST LINE of TFA:

Borland Software is releasing code from its core JBuilder integrated development environment (IDE) into the Eclipse open source community after a surprise drop in first-quarter sales.

... and further on ...

Earnings per share (EPS) came in at half their total for the same period last year, on 3 cents. The company said it closed its lowest number of deals worth more than $1m for six quarters.

It's been dying for a year and a half.

</rant>

Here, I'll put it in a form even YOU can understand:

<troll>

It is official; the market confirms: Borland is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Borland community when both the market and multiple slashdot posters confirmed that Borland mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all coders. Coming on the heels of financial results which plainly states that Borland has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Borland is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in market.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Borland's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Borland faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Borland because Borland is dying. Things are looking very bad for Borland. As many of us are already aware, Borland continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

JBuilder is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Borland developers through opensourcing JBuilder only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Borland is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Due to the troubles of Inprise, abysmal sales and so on, Inprise gave up and went back to doing business as Borland; they open-sourced another troubled product, InterBase. Now InterBase is also dead. So is Kylix. Same with dBASE and WordPerfect, their corpses turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Borland has steadily declined in market share. Borland is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Borland is to survive at all it will be among code dilettante dabblers. Borland continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Borland is dead.

</troll>

Borland used to OWN the compiler market - 2/3 of all compilers sold were from Borland. They used to make software that was not just good - it was GREAT! But now they suck.

Re:Which one is better?

[neurojab]

JBuilder is terrible because you didn't like the UI? I can understand if you didn't "like" it because of the UI, or in your case a few specific things in the UI, but to rate it as terrible is an overstatement.

All an IDE is, effectively, is a UI, so perhaps it is appropriate to say that if the the UI is crap, the IDE is also crap.