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.

Dan Velasco is a Senior Technical Editor for WebSpherePower Magazine and DominoPower Magazine. He's a Sun Certified Java Programmer, Sun Certified Web Component Developer and an IBM Certified Solution Developer for WebSphere Studio V5.0. He's also a Principal CLP Application Developer (R4, R5 and ND6) as well as a CLP System Administrator (R4 and R5). You can reach him via email at dvelasco@webspherepower.com or on the Web at http://DanVelasco.com.