I bet you this title got your attention...
Let me tell you a story. It's one a lot of us Eclipse "insiders" know from our trip to Ludwigsburg, Germany. If you look at the program for Eclipse Summit Europe, you'll notice a distinct lack of Eclipse Platform committers, i.e. IBMers, presenting. And one of them was lucky enough to get his travel approval the Friday afternoon before the conference. The Summit was a resounding success despite that. The Eclipse community in Europe has gone well past caring about the traditional Platform and are looking at really cool technologies like OSGi with Equinox and Modeling (despite Dave Thomas' decree that modeling sucks, which it does, at least UML-like modeling).
Now, I'm not sure if this year is any different from previous ESE's. But with the discussions we're having on the EclipseCon program committee about how many IBMers will be able to attend to give their presentations, it's got me thinking. What happens if this apparent trend continues and we loose the commitment IBM has made to Eclipse. Can Eclipse survive without IBM?
Well, I can say Wind River is doing their part to help out. We have myself and Martin O working on the Platform Resources evolution for e4. And we have Pawel who's now a Platform Debug committer. And as always, we're doing major contributions to the CDT and DSDP projects. And the numbers show the Eclipse committer community continues to grow and a lot of projects are healthy.
So can we survive without IBM? Absolutely. In fact, I'd consider the Eclipse Platform feature complete, at least for the needs of IDE and RCP/OSGi vendors. Yeah, things could be cleaned up, and yeah, we could make Eclipse work with Web 2.0 (although I really question whether SWT is the right technology for that). But from what I saw in Germany, Eclipse is alive and well. There are some really cool things that are going on and while the platforms are stabilizing and are probably becoming less interesting (and I'll sadly include the CDT in that list), I get the sense that those relying on the platforms will keep them alive. They have too.
Actually, if you look at the current trend, zx, Nick Boldt, Ed Merks, Wassim left IBM over the last year. Not sure but I think Kenn Huessey left IBM last year ? Might be mistaken on him.
ReplyDeleteSo the current trend is that we still have the same committers, they just seem to pay for their paycheck themselves.
Not to distract from your key point - Eclipse is a strongly independent entity - but...
ReplyDeleteLet's not get too caught up in the fact that *many* organizations have very strict travel bans going on what is a pretty challenging economic time. IBM was far from the only company to have way fewer people in attendance.
But again, your core point of - even though some larger companies sent a fraction of attendees to ESE and yet it still had more attendees than last year - is a great testemony to how strong things are.
I have to agree with Doug wrt Eclipse's stability. While IBM's involvement does fluctuate over time it is largely stable. The community as a whole is growing around them so IBM's relative contribution shrinks. Ultimately this is great for Eclipse and IBM! Increase in diversity, broader funding base, ... Companies like EclipseSource (shameless plug) and Wind River are showing up to make significant contributions and drive the platform from a one company show to a multi-faceted, diverse project. Everyone benefits.
ReplyDeleteAs ex-IBMers, you and I both know that travel restrictions are a persistant feature of the corporate landscape. It is unfortunate but reality. Similarly, some attrition is to be expected. In fact, in a group as bright and talented as the IBM Eclipse team, it is surprising that the retention rate is so high! Note as well that we are already seeing some additional bright IBMers show up on various projects.
Summary: Everyone, including the IBM team, is working hard and doing great stuff and Eclipse as a platform and a community is continuing to grow and prosper.
To Don's point, absolutely, ESE showed how strong Eclipse is. The energy at the conference was very high and I didn't feel an IBM presence at all, other than all the ex-IBMers there.
ReplyDeleteAnd to Jeff's point on IBM retention, we are seeing a lot of senior people leaving which should be concerning, especially if they land outside Eclipse. I'm actually hoping to help address that as I try to hire to help me here at Wind in Ottawa (another shameless plug, feel free to contact me if you're looking ;)).
IBM is betting the house on Eclipse. All the Rational tools use Eclipse as their foundation. The RCP app with the most users is courtesy of IBM. And OSGI is making rapid inroads to IBM's server side too. So there is no withdrawal from IBM anytime in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe simple fact: Currently any IBM travel currently needs a customer opportunity attached or it won't happen.
:-) stw
Disclaimer: I work for IBM.
stw: I'll buy a copy of Jazz if you send all the committers I need to talk to.
ReplyDeleteBTW, that's the topic of an upcoming blog. If IBM doesn't see the Eclipse community as a customer opportunity, then what's all this about an ecosystem?
The Eclipse community is becoming more diverse and that's positive for everyone. Just because there aren't as many IBMers attending conferences these days doesn't mean we aren't happily committing code :-)
ReplyDelete2008 commits sorted by company
Maybe they didn't send so many programmers to the conference, but does anyone know if IBM changed the amount of money it must surely put up to co-sponsor the event? That's where I think they would still make a difference, even if they trailed off on the commits.
ReplyDeleteLike another poster said, Eclipse is fundamental to too many of the company's products for IBM to ever leave the picture voluntarily. I only see them leaving if Eclipse somehow gets overtaken by a better platform, and they stop using it on new projects.