The Eclipse Project
On Feb 2, 2004 the Eclipse Board of Stewards announced Eclipse's reorganization into a not-for-profit corporation. Originally a consortium that formed when IBM released the Eclipse Platform into Open Source, Eclipse became an independent body that will drive the platform's evolution to benefit the providers of software development offerings and end-users.

The Eclipse Project is an open source software development project dedicated to providing a robust, full-featured, commercial-quality, industry platform for the development of highly integrated tools. The mission of the Eclipse Project is to adapt and evolve the eclipse technology to meet the needs of the eclipse tool building community and its users, so that the vision of eclipse as an industry platform is realized.

Since much of WebSphere uses the Eclipse platform, http://www.eclipse.org is a must-visit site for any WebSphere professional.

Smart Data Processing's WebSphere FAQ
We've been poking around, looking for that all-encompassing FAQ for WebSphere. Frankly, we haven't found one yet. That said, Smart Data Processing's WebSphere FAQ is small, but basic. What we like about it is that on one page, the FAQ explains in simple terms what WebSphere is, and what the parts are. If you're trying to explain to management just what the heck you're dealing with, point your browser to http://www.smartdataprocessing.com/websphere-faq.html.

The IBM.Software.WebSphere newsgroup
One of the most active WebSphere communities we've found has been the ibm.software.websphere newsgroups. Located at news://ibm.software.websphere or (via Google) http://groups.google.com/groups?group=ibm.software.websphere, there are a whole bunch of subsidiary newsgroups, all with very active participants.

WebSphere World
Finally, there's WebSphere World, a slashdot-style community and discussion forum site located at http://www.websphere-world.com. Like most community-driven sites, you're going to have to do some digging, but there's some very useful information to be found here.

Well, that ought to keep you busy for a few hours. If you've found any other great WebSphere resources, send a note to me at david@ZATZ.com and we'll showcase them in a later issue.

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.