The Eclipse open source tools project will henceforth be a not-for-profit corporation called the Eclipse Foundation. Among the first members of its new board of directors will be IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Ericsson, MontaVista Software, QNX Software Systems, and Serena Software - but still no Sun or BEA.

A full time Executive Director will be appointed in due course. IBM's Skip McGaughey, executive director of the Eclipse consortium to date, is stepping down. Nearly 50 companies have already signed on for membership of the new Foundation.

In a response to Sun's provocative Open Letter to the Eclipse membership , Eclipse Steward Dave Bernstein last week said:

"To be clear, the invitation for Sun to join Eclipse at the Board of Directors level - extended unanimously by the Eclipse Stewards - does not require Sun to abandon or in any way deprecate the NetBeans platform. It requires Sun to take development leadership of one or more Eclipse Projects and pay annual dues, as is required of every other Strategic Developer."

With its multi-billion cash reserves, it isn't because Sun is short of the $5,000 annual contribution money that it's not joining.

Said Skip McGaughey, who'll continue to act as spokesperson for Eclipse during the transition:

"This is a significant step forward in the evolution of Eclipse. For the Open Source development community, we’re establishing a strong support base that will strengthen the projects and expand a powerful reusable architecture. This creates long-term opportunities for reuse, interoperation and innovation that enable both providers and consumers to take development tool technology to the next level in functionality integration and usability."

• From Sun, An Open Letter to Eclipse Membership: "Get Serious"
• Sun's Open Letter to "Eclipsites"
• Eclipse Special: Eclipse in the News