It may be quite a while before there is a major upgrade to the base Eclipse platform. But developers of Eclipse technology and others attending the EclipseCon conference this week already have some good ideas on what they would like to see.Participants in a Tuesday evening session about the future of Eclipse detailed a laundry list of proposed improvements for what was called the 4.0 version of Eclipse. Among these include a ribbon-like interface similar to Microsoft’s new Windows Vista platform. Improved scalability, including accommodations for multi-core processors, also was suggested. Increased software componentization may be part of an upgrade as well.A suggestion of an API replacement drew applause, but one speaker noted that breaking the API is very challenging for consumers. Java improvements also could be added to Eclipse, along with simpler ways to construct Eclipse plug-ins. “If we want to talk about what the next Eclipse should be, it should be one that will [suit] us for the next five years,” said Kevin McGuire, a member of the Eclipse Project’s project management committee.But it looks like this wish list will take time. In an interview on Tuesday, Eclipse Executive Director Mike Milinkovich said he did not see any Eclipse 4.0 being released before 2009. Software Development