Milinkovich noted the organization has set its sights squarely on Microsoft in the tools arena. "Eclipse has done extremely well in becoming the premier alternative to Microsoft," in terms of size and scope of tools for its platform, said Milinkovich.

He presented multiple stages of embracing open source, with the first stage being denial. "Everyone here knows companies that are in denial about the impact that open source is having," said Milinkovich. He stressed he was not speaking just of Microsoft but added lawyers at corporations also have been skeptical.

Subsequent stages include a beginning user stage; a collaboration stage, in which a user starts to give back to the community; a champion stage, with more involvement in projects; a strategist stage, in which a business is built around open source, and an aggressive stage, in which participants seek to leverage maximum competitive advantage via open source.

Eclipse offers stable release cycles, which boosts the ability of companies to build products on top of the platform, said Milinkovich. In June, the foundation followed this strategy with Callisto (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/19/79424_HNeclipsecallisto_1.html), which featured the simultaneous release of 10 different Eclipse technologies.

An Eclipse user in the audience shared Milinkovich's enthusiasm, with one reservation.