Eclipse Names Executive Director

The Eclipse board named Mike Milinkovich to manage the organization's day-to-day operations, according to a news release. Milinkovich, previously the vice president of OracleAS Technology Services at Oracle, will serve a one-year term as Eclipse executive director.

Milinkovich is a 20-year IT industry veteran who has worked in a variety of business and technical positions, including posts at current Eclipse members WebGain and Object Technology International. Milinkovich recently resigned his position at Oracle; the Eclipse Foundation bylaws forbid the executive director from serving as an active employee or officer at a member company.

Milinkovich has several important tasks facing him in the weeks ahead. Eclipse 3.0, the next major version of the organization's open source IDE, is due in mid-June, and the release will serve as a major test of the Eclipse Foundation's effectiveness as an independent entity. He will also have to oversee the foundation's fund-raising efforts as it reduces its financial dependence on IBM.

In addition, Milinkovich will have to decide how to manage the foundation's relationships with major IT companies that have not joined as members, including Sun, Microsoft and BEA Systems. Sun, for example, has continued to work on its NetBeans IDE since declining to join Eclipse, and the company plans to release version 3.6 of NetBeans later this year. At the same time, BEA executives recently suggested the company would consider joining Eclipse, although BEA has not announced specific plans to do so.

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