Heady Times

These are heady times in Eclipse project-land. I feel busier than a… well, I’m really, really busy.

We have creation reviews pending for the Modeling Team Framework and Object Teams proposals. Object Teams is an already-established, mature project that’s moving to Eclipse. The logistics of the move are interesting enough (the project itself is darned interesting to boot). This project will enter eclipse.org under incubation, but intends to graduate with their first release; this makes a lot of sense for a project with established code base as it allows their developers time to get used to the Eclipse Development Process, but then quickly establish themselves as mature technology. There is some overlap with this project and some existing Eclipse project, but discussions are underway to see how these technologies can work together, or carve out their own unique corners.

New project proposals are flowing it at an incredible pace.

The Enterprise Modules Project, code-named Gemini, was proposed in late 2009 and is due for creation soon. This project will “provide a home for subprojects that integrate existing Java enterprise technologies into module-based platforms, and/or that implement enterprise specifications on module-based platforms.” As a start, the reference implementations for eight OSGi Enterprise Expert Group specifications will be created as subprojects. Gemini is complemented by Dynamic Enterprise Application Platform Project, Virgo, which intends “to provide a runtime platform for the development of server-side enterprise applications built on top of Equinox, and optionally using modules from the Gemini project.”

Also queued up are the Graphiti, JavaScript Development Tools, Mangrove - SOA Modeling Framework, Mylyn Reviews, and ScalaModules proposals. There are about a dozen other proposals pending that I’d love to tell you about, but will have to wait.

There seems to be no end of interest in bringing projects to Eclipse. This is very gratifying to me and I do love working with the hard-working folks involved. Parts of our process can be frustrating though, and I’m working hard to address them while balancing the important principles that define what it means to be an Eclipse project. I’ll be presenting the Eclipse Board with an overview of the changes to the Eclipse Development Process that I’m working on in mid-February. I intend to have a draft ready for presentation to the Board in time for EclipseCon. In the meantime, I’ll be discussing the changes here and in Eclipse Bugzilla. If there are specific issues that you’d like addressed as part of this revision, either open a bug or email me directly (I’m the only “wayne” at the Eclipse Foundation).

From http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/wayne