Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, has announced that they are joining the Java Community Process. At the same time they are joining the Object Management Group (OMG) and the OSGi Alliance. They're also working towards joining ObjectWeb and OpenAjax.
These moves have generated a lot attention. Milinkovich writes that this is really a sign of Eclipse maturing and desiring to play a more active part in the broader community. He goes on to say:
There are some who are going to view this story through the lense of the historically frosty relationship with Sun, and try to colour this as somehow controversial. But I really don't see any basis for controversy here. Sun has always acknowledged that Eclipse is part of the larger Java ecosystem, and we've always used JCP specifications. It's simply time to recognize that.
Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun commented on Milinkovich's blog expressing support and asking if any JSRs should be expected soon. Milinkovich indicates that they're still evaluating how they will get involved.