To be totally accurate, I would like to point out that Eclipse is not
packaged as an exe that does everything for you. It is actually packaged as
a zip file that you unzip somewhere. You can then double-click on the
executable, but that creates the workspace in the same directory as the
executable which is probably not the ideal way to operate. You probably want
your workspace somewhere else so you should create a shortcut on the desktop
to have the workspace in a better place. (It would be nice if the default
was for the workspace to be in your home directory).

Installation on Linux is even more difficult, particularly to install in a
shared location for everyone to use.

Then there is the issue of upgrading Eclipse and keeping your plug-ins.

So I can see a point to Eclipse being available as a Windows installer or as
an RPM for Linux.

--
Dale King

According to P A Hill  <goodhill@xmission.com>:

From my read of the original poster, the concern wasn't the download and
install, but concerns over the various licenses that one encounters downloading
eclipse and the various plugins, jdks, etc.  Rather than having various
developers play internet lawyers, the OP was, in my understanding, asking
if there was some "one stop shopping" company who would provide a single
legal document that a lawyer could examine and approve.

I should have been more clear....sorry. The programmers I am speaking about
are more than capable of installing Eclipse...some of them are writing
plug-ins to generate code via wizards (with WSAD) at work and running
Eclipse just fine at home. The situation is this: for most of the code that
goes in to the J2EE apps written at the company I work for, the two
perspectives that come with Eclipse are sufficient. This is due to the fact
that the EJB layer is very thin - all of the business logic is embodied in
plain Java classes used  by it. Further, the associated JUnit test cases are
constructed using mock objects so there is no need to have a server running
or a database connection to thoroughly flog the code. However, at this
point, all of the programmers are getting copies of WSAD IE, which is pretty
expensive on a per seat basis. We are reaching a point at which we need to
either buy a lot more seats (maybe downlevelling to Site Developer for most
of them) or find an alternative. It would be a trivial matter to download
Eclipse, but the license agreement which must be accepted exposes the
company to unlimited liability. Granted, the likelihood of there ever being
a suit is small, but the possibility is there nonetheless, and the legal
dept. won't sign off as a consequence. What I am seeking is a third-party
vendor that will bundle the Eclipse workbench and the JDK and indemnify us
contractually for a modest fee, so that we get the software tool without
risking the whole asset base.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.