tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38942273116229615492024-03-21T17:59:35.792-07:00The Eclipse Committer Reps (ARCHIVE)Welcome to the Eclipse committer representatives web presence. This is online for archival purposes.Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-14632878372760078262009-09-18T11:23:00.001-07:002009-09-18T11:23:51.614-07:00September Eclipse Board Meeting<span xmlns=''><p>Rather than my usual tome, here's a quick update from the Eclipse Board meeting in Boston.<br /></p><p>First, the Board voted unanimously to allow jGit to use EDL licensing. jGit is a dependent component of the <a href='http://www.eclipse.org/egit/'>eGit project</a>. By approving this license, the entire Eclipse tooling stack for git support can now live at Eclipse as a project. This is great news. Vive le git! Or is that "too le git to quit?"<br /></p><p>Second, project plans for next year are due. <a href='http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/wayne/2009/09/17/if-you-plan-to-plan-you-fail-to-fail/'>Wayne's blog</a> covers the details much better than I can. Project plans are an essential tool for communicating to the world what you are doing, and from now on, projects won't pass reviews without them. Please work with your PMC on getting your plans together.<br /></p><p>The other stuff we covered was the usual: KPI's, operations, money, and the beginnings of a strategic plan for next year. I'll let Mike comment on that.<br /></p></span>Doug Gaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648526940839535738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-54959369619334992362009-04-03T12:55:00.001-07:002009-04-03T12:59:19.597-07:00March 2009 Eclipse Board Meeting<span xmlns=""><p>While most EclipseCon attendees were enjoying the excellent tutorials or participating in the annual Members Meeting, the Eclipse Board was quietly having our quarterly face to face board meeting. As usual, here is a brief summary of our meeting.<br /></p><p><strong>Elections</strong>. We said goodbye to elected Board Members stepping down at the end of their terms: Robert Day, Mik Kersten, Jeff McAffer, Emma McGrattan and Tracy Ragan. The committer reps would especially like to recognize our fellow reps, Mik and Jeff. Jeff has been on the Board for several years and has contributed extensively to the direction of Eclipse, both in his project leadership and participation and at the Board level. I have personally worked with Mik over the past year on committer issues, and he is a strong community advocate, in addition to leading one of the coolest projects at Eclipse, <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/">Mylyn</a>. To this year's re-elected Committer Reps, Chris Aniszczyk, myself (Doug Gaff) and Ed Merks, we welcome newly-elected Boris Bokowski to our ranks. Boris has a long history with Eclipse and will serve the committer population well.<br /></p><p><strong>Key Performance Indicators</strong>. At every Board meeting, we review a large deck of slides called KPI's. These slides summarize progress on the Strategic Initiatives for the Foundation, membership statistics, and other vitality metrics such as site traffic, download stats, project activity, EPIC stats, etc. While some of the information is Board confidential, much of it can and should be shared with the public. Doug and Mike agreed to work on publishing some of the KPI's to the community for better visibility. Stay tuned.<br /></p><p><strong>EclipseCon</strong>. We reviewed the statistics on EclipseCon registration and expenses. While attendance was down this year, anecdotally because of attendee travel restrictions, the conference was still very well attended. Bjorn and the EclipseCon staff worked diligently to keep expenses in check with income while not affecting the quality of the conference. You probably didn't even notice the cost-savings measures, as most were completely hidden. The food, beverages, receptions, and wifi were all on par with past years. The Board formally recognized Bjorn for his incredible commitment to making EclipseCon a great conference.<br /></p><p><strong>Git</strong>. Yes, we discussed git, too, although <a href="http://douggaff.blogspot.com/2009/04/eclipsecon-2009-and-git.html">my other post</a> has much more current information on the topic.<br /></p><p><strong>Automotive Industry Working Group</strong>. Ralph Mueller, Director of Ecosystem in Europe, presented an update to the Board on the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Auto_IWG">Automotive Industry Working Group</a> currently under discussion with industry participants. This will be the second IWG created at Eclipse. (<a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/press-release/20090310_pulsar.php">Pulsar</a>, the Mobile Working Group, is the first.) In short, things are progressing nicely and Ralph hopes the group will form later this year. The Board feels very strongly that Industry Working Groups are a critical future direction for the Foundation and Ecosystem, and we're excited by the progress.<br /></p><p><strong>Membership and Finances</strong>. It is no secret that the entire world is in a massive economic recession. The Eclipse Foundation and Eclipse Member companies are not immune to this reality, and Foundation has experienced a net drop in membership. The Executive Director (Mike Milinkovich) and the Financial Officer (Chris Larocque) presented a very detailed revised 2009 budget that cut expenses in several areas while still preserving the level of service and staffing that the community has come to rely upon from the Foundation. The board was very impressed with the detail and thoroughness of the analysis, and we want to remind the community that the Eclipse Foundation is in excellent managerial hands. On an additional positive note, we'd like to welcome our first Enterprise level member, <a href="http://www.rim.com/">Research in Motion (RIM)</a>.<br /></p><p>Finally, as is apparently a tradition for March Board Meetings, we had a guest speaker. (Think "tutorial envy".) <a href="http://www.johnhagel.com/index.shtml">John Hagel</a> from the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation spoke to us about "Shaping Strategies". While I don't expect to do this topic justice in a single sentence, Shaping Strategies are proactive market strategies that leverage disruptive technology and allow a company to instantly grab market share in a new space. Think of Google's foray into the telecom space as one example. Check out <a href="http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0810E">John's paper</a> for a much better explanation.</p></span>Doug Gaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648526940839535738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-4550504702749098322008-12-18T06:20:00.001-08:002008-12-18T06:22:37.553-08:00December 2008 Board Meeting<span xmlns=""><p>The Eclipse Board of Directors just completed our Q4 face-to-face in San Francisco. This was a 2-day meeting jammed with topics. I've focused this tome mostly on the committer-related issues. Watch for the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/minutes.php">official board minutes</a>, and my apologies for the length. Board topics:<br /></p><ul><li>Project Plans and the Roadmap<br /></li><li>Industry Working Groups and the Eclipse Mobile Working Group<br /></li><li>Miscellaneous procedural items, including updates on ESE 08 and EclipseCon 09<br /></li><li>The Galileo release and the newly-revived Architecture Council<br /></li><li>Budget and executive compensation review<br /></li><li>EPIC proposal for improvements<br /></li><li>Annual Strategic Developer reports<br /></li><li>Discussion on Strategic Developer contributions to the common good<br /></li></ul><p>The Board approved the following amendment to the Eclipse Development Process:<br /></p><p><em>For any Project to pass a Continuation Review, Graduation Review or Release Review it must have a current project plan, in the format specified by the EMO, available to the community.</em><br /></p><p>We feel very strongly that the XML project plan format and linkage to Bugzilla plan items have been a positive step in improving plans across the project landscape, and this resolution further emphasizes the importance of transparent planning. I'd also like to note that of all of the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Galileo_Simultaneous_Release">Galileo requirements</a>, the XML project plan is the only one specifically mandated by the Board. The other requirements are either part of the Development Process or were added collectively by the Planning Council. <a href="http://dash.eclipse.org/%7Ebfreeman/platformplan.html">These plans roll-up</a> into the <a href="http://dash.eclipse.org/%7Ebfreeman/">Roadmap</a>, which was also approved at this meeting.<br /></p><p>We also discussed <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/industry-workgroups/">Industry Working Groups</a>, a new Foundation initiative designed to increase membership, industry awareness and usage of Eclipse, and engineering staffing on Eclipse projects. With my <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/">DSDP</a> hat on, I'm excited that the first one created is the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/MobileIndustryWG">Eclipse Mobile Working Group</a>.<br /></p><p>Mik and I led a lively discussion on the age-old <em>Adopter Community vs. User Community</em> question, in this case whether Galileo is supposed to be a coordinated build or a coordinated product. After much discussion, the Board reiterated the position that Galileo is a community-supported release of technology, which is subsequently productized by commercial adopters. Free users of Galileo get support from the community, but for enterprise-level support users need to buy a commercial product based on the Galileo technologies. In order to make this clearer on the eclipse.org site, the Galileo site will have 1) a statement that the EPP packages are community-supported, 2) a link to commercial distros, and 3) an obvious way to file bugs against an EPP package in Bugzilla.<br /></p><p>This discussion was followed up by a status update on the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Architecture_Council">Architecture Council</a>. <em>Attention eclipse community: the AC has been revived and is very now active.</em> If you haven't paid attention in a while, now is the time to re-engage. As part of the AC report, we also discussed some committer and project needs from the Foundation: Engineering Staffing, LGPL, Git, and JIRA. I discuss each below.<br /></p><p>Regarding staffing, we discussed some of the nice-to-have items from Galileo: BIDI, accessibility, usability, and cross-project QA. The conclusion was a reminder of the roles of the Foundation and the Membership when it comes to project staffing. As indicated in the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20BYLAWS%202008_07_24%20Final.pdf">bylaws</a>, the Foundation <em>facilitates the ecosystem</em> while maintaining vendor neutrality. So when applying engineering staffing, the Foundation supports infrastructure rather than writing code for specific projects. This means that if there are specific project features that the community feels are important, staffing needs to come from the community and the commercial ecosystem, not from the Foundation.<br /></p><p>LGPL was raised as an issue because some projects need to link to LGPL code to realize their full feature set. LGPL (and GPL) code is currently not allowed on the Foundation's servers, so multiple downloads are required for some projects. The Board's IP Advisory Committee is currently examining the LGPL policy.<br /></p><p>Git and JIRA are two tools that have been <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=249745">recently</a><br /> <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=253889">discussed</a> by the committers and project leads. Git is a Distributed Version Control System, intended to be a replacement for tools like CVS and SVN. JIRA is an issue tracking system similar to Bugzilla. The Foundation doesn't currently have the staff to deploy another VCS, so the Git discussion has been tabled for now. The Board does want to stay current and relevant technically in order to continue to attract projects and technologies, and we will likely need to revisit Git in the future. Regarding JIRA, the Board felt that adopting a second issue tracking system is out of scope at this time. The IP due diligence process and automated tooling are very closely tied both legally and technically to Bugzilla, and we felt that adopting a second system would be disproportionately costly relative to the benefits.<br /></p><p>We spent some time reviewing and approving next year's budget. It's appropriately conservative and includes built-in contingencies for the challenging economy. Some next steps for <a href="http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/">Eclipse Plug-in Central</a> (EPIC) were also approved (stay tuned). We reviewed the annual Strategic Developer reports, and you can see the <a href="http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php">per-company project and committer statistics</a> for yourself.<br /></p><p>Finally, we had a long discussion pertaining to how the Strategic members can further advance the platform (in the general sense) by putting some staffing on "common good" items. This was somewhat of a continuation of the staffing discussion above. I'd like to say that we reach some definitive conclusions, but we still have more work to do. Again, stay tuned. As part of this discussion, we talked about investment in the Eclipse Platform, both 3.x and E4. Not surprisingly, there was a mix of commercial needs represented in the room, some of whom have a long-term need for continued 3.x maintenance and enhancement and some of whom need the E4 platform.<br /></p><p>Happy Holidays from your friendly neighborhood committer reps!<br /></p></span>Doug Gaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648526940839535738noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-64941314598819739402008-12-17T13:41:00.000-08:002008-12-17T13:47:45.033-08:00XMPP Server for Eclipse CommittersAn FYI for Eclipse committers, we now have an <a href=" https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=126089">XMPP server</a> hosted at Eclipse.org that you can use. If you're a committer, you already have an account. Simply follow the instructions on the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/xmpp.eclipse.org">wiki</a>. There are already several people taking advantage of the server:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMslglLveUbZFbXXUqIOz6Z95HYB6PuEkpu69bmiPhwuwoCz3xnvYo9p6mKVIPwtwlXzfH6DjDp8XggGY1IdH8uB1psk5fYkOdocVql0vY4_8KhsNmM1PsUWR9AwuyqN3MQdr5FqiWy0jF/s1600-h/xmpp-server.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 190px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMslglLveUbZFbXXUqIOz6Z95HYB6PuEkpu69bmiPhwuwoCz3xnvYo9p6mKVIPwtwlXzfH6DjDp8XggGY1IdH8uB1psk5fYkOdocVql0vY4_8KhsNmM1PsUWR9AwuyqN3MQdr5FqiWy0jF/s320/xmpp-server.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280875670685647490" /></a><br /><br />There are different clients you can use to connect to the server... I personally use a combination of ECF and <a href="http://www.adiumx.com/">Adium</a> on the Mac:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAra8mtdjDFhU9aJ8zf1aNcNMIEgzI9mcQ2Sf2HT3orQrVc-nMSzAK1LNbmjkLPU8_zHIbq-zAhFzv4rRcIgzhkK7CLKJjUPOu3u0kP05zDzM41U7CImsZW103NGJf2XT_yi3qRHDX_UDQ/s1600-h/Xmpp_people.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 205px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAra8mtdjDFhU9aJ8zf1aNcNMIEgzI9mcQ2Sf2HT3orQrVc-nMSzAK1LNbmjkLPU8_zHIbq-zAhFzv4rRcIgzhkK7CLKJjUPOu3u0kP05zDzM41U7CImsZW103NGJf2XT_yi3qRHDX_UDQ/s320/Xmpp_people.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280877022508619842" /></a><br /><br />Feel free to use the server as a way to collaborate with other committers... for example you have the opportunity to use the server to <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.vimeo.com/1195398%3Fpg%3Dembed%26sec%3D1195398&ei=WHFJSZD3KdG3twfU__GWDg&usg=AFQjCNEahubCdvjWYIAyR_y0kIKYCU6ZQA">share editors</a> using <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/ecf">ECF</a>.<br /><br />The next stop on the committer representative train will be <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=257706">pushing</a> for a Git repository :)<br /><br />Enjoy and Happy Holidays from your friendly neighborhood committer reps!Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-52548902782512376862008-09-18T13:40:00.001-07:002008-09-18T13:42:21.144-07:00September Board Meeting<span xmlns=""><p>The Eclipse Board just completed our Q3 face-to-face in Dallas. We covered the following topics:<br /></p><ul><li>Miscellaneous general business, including welcoming <a href="http://www.genuitec.com/">Genuitec</a>, <a href="http://www.obeo.fr/?&lang=en">Obeo</a>, <a href="http://www.sonatype.com/">Sonatype</a> to the Strategic Member roster.<br /></li><li>Update on the Eclipse Strategy<br /></li><li>Discussion on Industry Working Groups<br /></li><li>Continued discussion on the dual licensing of runtimes<br /></li><li>Sustainer and Committer Member representative issues<br /></li><li><div>The usual KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and status on upcoming Eclipse conferences </div></li></ul><p>If you're plugged into the Eclipse community, you'll know Genuitec from their MyEclipse and Pulse products. Obeo and Sonatype were new to me. Obeo is a modeling company that specializes in software migration of legacy code to new languages, among other things. Sonatype is the company behind Maven and the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/m2e/">m2e</a> project.<br /></p><p>The Eclipse Strategy update was very interesting. You may remember from my <a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/2008/06/june-board-meeting.html">last board post</a>, that the Board kicked off a strategy discussion in June under the leadership of Ricco Deutscher from SOPERA. We spent a good portion of that 2-day meeting outlining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) facing our community. In this Board meeting, the Strategy Committee presented their vision, strategic goals, and initiatives for the SWOT's. We made several changes, and we hope to finalize the document by the December face-to-face board meeting.<br /></p><p>With the new <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/membership/become_a_member/membershipTypes.php">membership classes</a> in place thanks to the overwhelming support of the Eclipse membership, the EMO has been working on initiatives that add demonstrable, additive value for Strategic and Enterprise level members. At this Board meeting, we discussed two initiatives: Industry Working Groups and the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/membership/special_programs/custom-delivery-installer-program.php">Custom Delivery Installer Program</a>.<br /></p><p>Working Groups have been around at Eclipse for a while, but <em>Industry Working Groups</em> are a new concept. Put simply, and Industry Working Group is like a mini-consortium organized under the Eclipse Foundation that will bring companies in similar Industry Verticals together to chart and staff a strategic course for eclipse technologies related to their Industry. (Hmm, was that simply put?) These working groups will help provide cohesive direction to various projects in Eclipse. Nokia and Motorola are already proposing the first such group: the <em>Mobile Working Group</em>. Stay tuned for more specifics on this new group, but suffice it to say, I expect this working group will help provide vision and staffing for several of the mobile projects in DSDP. Industry Working Groups have a two-tier membership structure: the Steering Committee (made up of Enterprise and Strategic members) and Participants (open to all Eclipse members.)<br /></p><p>The Customer Delivery Install Program turned into a somewhat contentious discussion, as evident in the <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=243523">bugzilla</a> on this topic. This program has two purposes: to improve the download experience for users of Eclipse projects and also to provide additional value to Strategic Members who want to offer downloads of their technologies on top of a standard package. If you're interested in this topic, please comment on the bugzilla.<br /></p><p>Jeff McAffer continued a dual licensing discussion that I started at the June Board meeting around dual licensing of runtime components. As you may recall, the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/rtsc/">RTSC</a> and <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/">TM</a> projects in DSDP have small runtime components that needed to be licensed under EDL and EPL in order to encourage commercial integration of the runtimes with both Linux and commercial real-time operating systems. Jeff, as head of the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/rt/">RT</a> project, is running into similar deployment situations with parts of the runtime technology. While we still envision the need to discuss dual licensing on a case-by-case basis, the IP Advisory Committee is going to examine the dual licensing policy and better document options that new projects have in choosing licensing.<br /></p><p>Finally, the KPI's covered the usual information about membership, website traffic, financials, etc. Nothing terribly important to note. We did get an update on Eclipse Summit Europe 2008 and EclipseCon 2009, both of which are on-track to be excellent conferences. ESE is especially challenged right now, with 210 talk submissions for only 60 available slots. It's a testament to the strength of Eclipse in the European community, and I expect ESE will need to grow in size in the years to come.<br /></p><p>That's all for now from your friendly neighborhood committer reps!<br /></p></span>Doug Gaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648526940839535738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-23870293584469764902008-06-25T10:19:00.001-07:002008-06-25T10:23:38.985-07:00June Board Meeting<span xmlns=""><p>I've been an elected committer rep for 3 months now. Committers: thanks a lot for all this extra work!<br /></p><p>In all seriousness, I want to update the community on last week's Eclipse Board Meeting. As you know, some of the material covered in Board meetings is confidential (especially financial stuff). However, most of it is open and ends up being published in the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/minutes.php">minutes</a>. Last week, the Board met in lovely Denver to cover the following topics:<br /></p><ul><li>New fee structure approval and <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/membership/vote2008/">Bylaw change vote</a> discussion<br /></li><li>Project reports from TPTP and BIRT<br /></li><li>Positive vote on standardizing eRCP at the OSGi Alliance<br /></li><li>Project Roadmap Process<br /></li><li>Japanese Localization of Bugzilla<br /></li><li>Positive vote on dual Licensing (EPL and EDL) for the embedded runtime components in <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/rtsc/">RTSC</a> and <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/">TM</a>.<br /></li><li>Eclipse Strategy discussion<br /></li></ul><p>I want to focus on a couple items that are relevant for the wider committer community. First, the Project Roadmap. Project leads will recall the heated discussion about the XML <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=215301">project plan format</a>. Much of the concern was around the dates when projects needed to have their plans posted. You'll be happy to know that the Board moved the Eclipse roadmap publication dates, so <strong><em>project plans are now due by September 30</em></strong> instead of August 31. This better aligns with the typical project planning cycles, especially for Eclipse train projects.<br /></p><p>Second, we had a discussion about Japanese localization of Bugzilla. In the interest of full disclosure: this is coming at the request of one of my incubating projects - <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/nab/">NAB</a>. NAB already has both English and Japanese mailing lists and web pages, but they don't use Bugzilla at all right now because they perceive a language barrier with their user community. (Incidentally, there's also a <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/japanwg/">Japanese Working group</a> in Eclipse.) The Board discussed localization and agreed that native language templates for Bugzilla are a reasonable request, but <strong><em>conversations in Bugzilla needed to be conducted in English</em></strong>. Given our intense focus on IP issues in the community, we feel this is critical. <em>How do the committers feel about this?</em><br /> </p><p>Third, did you know that there's an Eclipse Strategy document? Yes, there's a one page document from last year, but I haven't yet found the link. Anyway, it contains some good goals, but it's pretty light on initiatives. In an attempt to advance our strategic thinking, the Board had a facilitated discussion on Eclipse strategy – the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing our community. The results aren't fully baked yet, so stayed tuned for more communication on the ideas and initiatives.<br /></p><p>There were some other interesting discussions. I'll cover eRCP standardization and the dual-licensed embedded runtime components in a future post.<br /></p></span>Doug Gaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648526940839535738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-13632306191829165342008-02-08T23:30:00.000-08:002008-02-08T21:12:34.151-08:00EclipseCon 2008: Committers ViewEclipseCon has always been a great gathering of the Eclipse Committers.<br />As such <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">EclipseCon 2008</span></a> has lots to offer Eclipse committers.<br /><br />We have worked to create the <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=sub/&category=Committer+and+Contributor">Committer and Contributors </a>track as part of the program. As the name suggests this is a grouping of talks that are of special interest to all Eclipse committers and contributors.<br /><br />Another event specifically targeted for contributors and brought to you with help from your Committer representatives is the <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=hackathon">Hackathon</a>. Don't spend all your time there but hunker down and code when you feel the need.<br /><br />Not really directly part of EclipseCon, is the <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=sub/&id=554">Eclipse Foundation Members Meeting</a>. It is an all day meeting on Monday March 17. To see the blogged content of a previous members meeting go <a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/2007/09/eclipse-members-meeting-2007.html">here</a>. For all the minutes go <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/minutes.php">here.</a> Something new to check out perhaps?<br /><br />EclipseCon is a great opportunity to meet your Eclipse board including the Committer representatives and Add-in Providers that you elect during the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/nominees.php">current board election</a>.<br />Lots of great candidates to choose from: do not forget to read all the positions and get the vote out!<br />At EclipseCon come and explore the Exhibit hall which, besides hosting lots of great exhibits, will have a small area with a couple of chairs to do a <span style="font-style: italic;">meet and greet</span> with some members of the Eclipse board.<br /><br />And I know that at least two of your current committer representatives will be out on the <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=activities/">EclipseCon Exercise</a> activity. Do you like <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=activities/">golf</a>? <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=activities/">Blackberries</a>? How about <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=activities/">Jazz</a>?<br /><br />Looking for a new job that requires Eclipse skills? All the EclipseCons I have attended (and I have been lucky enough to attend all of them) have had a <span style="font-style: italic;">job opportunities board</span> for perusal. As well, you would be hard pressed to find a better networking opportunity...<br /><br />Looking for people with the same interests as yourself? <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=submissions/">Birds of Feather or BOFs</a> are still being organized and are always a great way to meet other people with the same passions.<br /><br />And don't forget the <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=table/&date=2008-03-17">tutorials</a>...which are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre">gratis</a> :-)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/index.php?page=registration/">Sign up already</a> :-) <a href="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/"><img src="http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/image125x125.gif" alt="EclipseCon 2008" border="0" height="125" width="125" /></a>Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-18301796355083976912007-11-16T19:00:00.000-08:002007-11-16T11:03:56.926-08:00Eclipse DemoCampsWe would like to remind and encourage you to participate in one of the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamp">Eclipse DemoCamps</a> during November and December. We have over 20 DemoCamps organized in different cities around the world.<br /><br />What is an Eclipse DemoCamp?<br />Stealing from the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamp">wiki</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Eclipse DemoCamp is an opportunity to showcase all of the cool interesting technology being built by the Eclipse community. It is also an opportunity for you to meet Eclipse enthusiasts in your city. </span> <p style="font-style: italic;">The format of the DemoCamp is pretty informal. The idea is for a group of Eclipse enthusiasts to meet up and demo what they are doing with Eclipse. The demos can be of research projects, Eclipse open source projects, applications based on Eclipse, commercial products using Eclipse, whatever you think might be of interest to the attendees. The only stipulation is that it is Eclipse related. </p> Please take this opportunity to get involved and sign-up for a demo at a DemoCamp located near you today.<br /><br />See you there!Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-8680300726808186962007-09-24T11:00:00.000-07:002007-09-24T11:18:43.405-07:00Eclipse Members Meeting 2007<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DBW7yyI8VgjBCMNWh-Uk6XdfJ2Z7QpETqxdSU8kqLt9Qm7nEZQseDFC32WkD8vj4d1t6_O8CmyxNqrWwuOrpk914HRyug7S_23B7jYLhXkgqXtQ-8NXu5gl9mkdOlMVv9Ejhs3U-uwQ/s1600-h/IMG_2500.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113608012725595378" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DBW7yyI8VgjBCMNWh-Uk6XdfJ2Z7QpETqxdSU8kqLt9Qm7nEZQseDFC32WkD8vj4d1t6_O8CmyxNqrWwuOrpk914HRyug7S_23B7jYLhXkgqXtQ-8NXu5gl9mkdOlMVv9Ejhs3U-uwQ/s200/IMG_2500.JPG" border="0" /></a>We finished up the Eclipse Members meeting for another year. The meeting was held in Chicago this year. With our commitments of the Eclipse board meeting on Wednesday, we attended the members meeting on Thursday.<br /><br />We started the day with <strong>Mike Milinkovich</strong> (Executive Director) reviewing the Eclipse Foundation staff (17 people) and introducing the two new employees:<br />Gabe O'Brien - Darn good programmer working in Portland<br />Barbara Cochrane - IP Management working in Ottawa.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghkNW-NRaUe9c0UGD2hGGEPwf11pDaD7WbfZ7MEqyQvCUeyMGnmv7TkO3Elk7jVT8XT3dZpGRqiIDLJrZBp4NGFcx_aMzCMoPeT6Mwby4pcWnS49oiZY3KuK_-WepKDYueqJjTH5cM8i8/s1600-h/dwnlds.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113064591988468946" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghkNW-NRaUe9c0UGD2hGGEPwf11pDaD7WbfZ7MEqyQvCUeyMGnmv7TkO3Elk7jVT8XT3dZpGRqiIDLJrZBp4NGFcx_aMzCMoPeT6Mwby4pcWnS49oiZY3KuK_-WepKDYueqJjTH5cM8i8/s200/dwnlds.png" border="0" /></a>We all had a look at the download statistics.<br />The new Eclipse packages have significantly increased number of downloads with the expected spike for the Europa coordinated release.<br /><br />China has continued to be the country with the highest percents of downloads at 21% followed by United States and Germany.<br /><br /><br /><div><br /><p></p>We reviewed the Strategy Update. The new items going forward:<br /><ul><li>foster OSGi based tun time platform for applications.<br /></li><li>increase divesity and transparency in the projects. Focus on creating a community of innovation.<br /></li><li>encourage improved usability and out of box experience in the projects.<br /></li><li>make IP leadership a competitive advantage for the Eclipse community.<br /></li><li>implement programs for university outreach.<br /></li></ul><p>We walked through the IPZilla improvements and these are detailed in another <a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/2007/09/ip-process-update-ipzilla-improvements.html">post</a>. </p><p>Old news to us on the board but the Q3 update for the board of directors included the approval of new trademark guidelines by the board and the creation of the IP working group.</p>There are lots of conferences on the horizon including:<br /><a href="http://www.eclipsesummit.org/"><img alt="Eclipse Summit Europe 2007" src="http://www.eclipsecon.org/summiteurope2007/image125x125.gif" border="0" height="125" width="125" /></a> Expect 400 attendees<br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.ossummit.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113596682601868514" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxMQINt1TnL7DRfhU9OFHZl_y7Xb0fc6HwXFznkflqwcQj0MGrgXD47pedShLR-RUhyphenhyphenwfIU0gH85UFfxvV4W3YncM3k98PtWUqyvtVKknphVYZxOj-mKXe59_grBcy8n6JGtTNXkXBIsQ/s320/ossummit_banner.png" border="0" /></a>Expect 400 attendees with possibility of numerous remote attendees via online linkup.</p><p><br /></p><p>EclipseCon 2008. March 17-21, 2008 San Jose, CA<br />Call for papers opens October 16; Deadline is November 19. Expect 1500 attendees.</p>Looking ahead the Foundation is busy planning for EclipseCon, working on the improvements for IP process, planning for Ganymede.<br /><br /><p>Some areas specifically called out for opportunities to get involved were the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/babel/">Babel</a> translation project and the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Architecture_Working_Group">Eclipse UI working group.</a><br /><br /><strong>Bjorn Freeman-Benson</strong> (Director, Open Source Process) presented on the current reality of the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Development_Process_2006_Revision_Final">Eclipse Development Process</a> and the tweaks that are required to keep the reality matching the written process. The EDP needs to codify what we the community think is important and what we are willing to enforce for the good of the community.<br />Successes include the Architecture council mentoring of new Eclipse projects, the project release reviews and the open and transparent committer elections. </p><strong>Bjorn</strong> reiterated that the goal of the EDP is reality not fiction.<br /><p>One suggested tweak is to move the EDP to encourage diversity goals and that projects should strive to have diversity instead of the current wording where projects must have goals and are required to have diversity.<br /><br />We received project updates from <strong>Bjorn</strong> on the most recent and interesting state changes of some of the over 80 projects within Eclipse. <strong>Bjorn</strong> also indicated the plan to have project dashboards - to provide even more useful information for community.<br /><br />The new Eclipse members were introduced. Check them out:<br /><a href="http://www.webtide.com/">Webtide</a> - scalable AJAX and comet; core developers of jetty<br /><br /><a href="http://www.replaysolutions.com/">Replay Solutions</a>: tools that plug into Eclipse - capture and replay bugs<br /><br /><strong>Ian Skerrett </strong>(Director, Marketing) presented the marketing update Q3/2007. We had 59 blogposts from the Europa review contest...and all of the reviewers got shirts. Planning on more and similar "promotions" in the future.<br /><br />At both the board meeting and the Members meeting we had several "outside" presentations. All were thought provoking.<br /><br /><strong>Matt Lawton</strong>, IDC presented on "Generating Revenue with Open Source Software".<br />Companies must now compete on their business model and there is lots up for grabs.<br />Last year there was 1.8 billion from standalone OSS revenue and this projected to 5.8 by 2011 with a growth rate higher than that of traditional software revenue growth.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailetti.html"><strong>Tony Bailetti</strong></a> from Carleton University was all about "Making money from OS".<br />Companies need to be clear on how they will make money from OS<br />Make money from OS template<br />- increase buyers willingness to pay for companies offers<br />- increase size of market<br />- decrease buyer willingness to pay for competitors<br />- decrease suppliers coast of working with you<br /><br />We then did an impromptu case study of <a href="http://www.innoopract.com/en/home.html">Innoopract</a> via <strong>Jochen Krause</strong> reviewing a simplistic model of Innoopract's business and how it mapped to the template.</p>We ended our work at this gathering with a committer breakout session. We had a great question and answer period with <strong>Bjorn</strong> as the Eclipse Development Process expert, <strong>Janet Campbell</strong> (Legal Counsel & Manager, Intellectual Property) as the IP expert and all the committer representatives providing some wisdom from the trenches. Great practical application and exchanges to round out the day.<br /><br />More meeting information can be found <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/membersminutes/20070920MembersMeeting/MeetingMinutes.php">here</a>.<br /><br />We can look forward to seeing the members / committers at the meeting next year. Hope you can join us!</div></div>Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-60036967420909789302007-09-22T09:46:00.000-07:002007-09-22T09:06:10.813-07:00IP Process Update: IPZilla Improvements<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgHYdsDFmpIv5q8KslAgBorYVnyQ9vhIIHxqeqG8DX2Tri0HLzC987Cb-9gKSbUM9Txc7VoDaopAmzFGenmfvaWCu9kuVO_wNc9ovrE-8kZGTN_XMgliUwSAvAHrhB-TxW6u8Cc9fHuY/s1600-h/ipzilla_header.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5112791414888574114" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgHYdsDFmpIv5q8KslAgBorYVnyQ9vhIIHxqeqG8DX2Tri0HLzC987Cb-9gKSbUM9Txc7VoDaopAmzFGenmfvaWCu9kuVO_wNc9ovrE-8kZGTN_XMgliUwSAvAHrhB-TxW6u8Cc9fHuY/s320/ipzilla_header.jpg" border="0" /></a> The Eclipse foundation staff, the Eclipse board and your humble committer representatives have been hard at work improving the tools and interactions that implement parts of the Eclipse intellectual property (IP) process.<br /><br />An IP Process working group has been tasked by the board to suggest and follow the changes being made by the Eclipse foundation staff.<br /><br />The current set of improvements being worked on:<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113057415098117314" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFuKeXuEVyePqVHL7R2esOvx4EDom7TP0buSKe3wy2168cWLVbfY1s-6-SgNa5K8JzIPMgJUjchZcZfQq_4r2DT692jZ-4fN1ucXF7PwYZpQmqoCmkZvMTDLMLnL3mxhOqz15ZE2Wjv4/s320/portal.png" border="0" /> <ul><li>a portal based contribution questionnaire that will drive a simplified workflow for committers to submit an IP contribution questionnaire (CQ) into <a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/ipzilla/">IPZilla</a>.</li><br /><li>quick action buttons to do the work for you for common workflows.</li><br /><li>Automatic code scanning with a keyword scan tool...looking for those pesky swear words, derogatory comments and "problem" indicator words. </li><br /><li><a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/ipzilla/">IPZilla</a> now has project incubation status indicated in the request as well as some helpful canned work queue queries. The little egg is everywhere!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo2gtfvcoWAvZrzzaZ8l1-SZjoCG0FU1dtW9EGpNEXIVWdwA_lDvoYjJjN1b4vrydFW-tjdtRJG2hfeT35OIKEBTbo8fTQr13sQE60JUKfL5dO4tHUl4sgdnd7jODCp-WpfWK9OA722c/s1600-h/status.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113056319881456818" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo2gtfvcoWAvZrzzaZ8l1-SZjoCG0FU1dtW9EGpNEXIVWdwA_lDvoYjJjN1b4vrydFW-tjdtRJG2hfeT35OIKEBTbo8fTQr13sQE60JUKfL5dO4tHUl4sgdnd7jODCp-WpfWK9OA722c/s320/status.jpg" border="0" /></a></li></ul><p>Other improvements that are planned in the shorter term include more workflow improvements, better emails (unique style and better wording) as well as reminder emails when progress has been halted on a specific CQ awaiting input.<br /><br />Long term we can hope to see an implementation of an attachment / JAR scanner to really help the committer understand what kind of crazy nested hierarchy <em>is in</em> that JAR file.<br />Also planned is the automatic notification of projects that have requested usage of a JAR when a new version of the JAR has been approved for general usage. We can also hope to see the <em>real</em> requester of the CQ displayed in IPZilla.<br /></p><p></p>Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-28325207146496005412007-08-02T02:34:00.000-07:002007-08-01T12:44:04.037-07:00What's in a noteworthy keyword?I remember in the past, as an Eclipse user, looking at the New and Noteworthy <a href="http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.3-200706251500/whatsnew/eclipse-news.html">document</a> for each milestone with glee. It was something to anticipate when each Eclipse milestone was released... you thought to yourself, what cool stuff will be in this milestone?<br /><br />Now, as an Eclipse committer, I'm on the side of generating some of these New and Noteworthy items. I have created a <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=198021">bug</a> requesting that a new keyword be added to bugzilla called <b>noteworthy</b>. The purpose of this keyword is three-fold:<br /><ul><li>Make it easier for committers to tag what items they think are noteworthy. A common workflow for committers towards the end of a release is to scan the bugs fixed and pick and choose noteworthy items. I think we can improve this.</li><li>In the best interest of transparency, our users (and even our committers) would like to see where noteworthy items come from and to be easy to query what's new would be great.</li><li>For people like the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/emf">EMF</a> team who like to <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/news/relnotes.php?project=emf&version=HEAD">automatically generate release notes</a> with each release, this can be a way to mark specific bugs as noteworthy ones.</li></ul>So, if you're a committer or even a user who think this would be useful, please comment on the <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=198021">bug</a>. If you're a committer on a project that doesn't publish these new and noteworthy type of documents, I highly recommend it as it's something your consumers may enjoy to read.Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-71198839290135116732007-07-30T09:37:00.000-07:002007-07-30T09:53:10.584-07:00IPZilla Summer Vacation 2007<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj23GH8tE2tFF9OFOfXVqGNHkEPGR9xmT-SSbO1kPsuvPddZ3ckAym2twACiwjwbgH2nZqAZVm0pDCGejkmRf5_ZEIWqapl8-e1OgEFAEABlEjlZ_UDU7oc3c1fso1ZOK92FZVWnLM5Jgw/s1600-h/003.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj23GH8tE2tFF9OFOfXVqGNHkEPGR9xmT-SSbO1kPsuvPddZ3ckAym2twACiwjwbgH2nZqAZVm0pDCGejkmRf5_ZEIWqapl8-e1OgEFAEABlEjlZ_UDU7oc3c1fso1ZOK92FZVWnLM5Jgw/s200/003.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5092832313818972514" border="0" /></a>No...the plan is not to have <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/IPzilla">IPZilla</a> go away for the summer :-)<br /><br />Rather the Eclipse foundation is planning work to improve the user experience of both the Eclipse committers and the Eclipse legal staff when working with IPZilla.<br />This work will require no changes to the Eclipse IP Policy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Please check out the goals and the plan: </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/Summer_Vacation_2007_IPzilla_Improvements">link</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br /><br />As committer representatives we are excited about these proposed changes. I know that it would have made my life easier with my previous experiences outlined here:<a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/2007/04/experiences-with-eclipse-ip-process.html"> link</a>.<br /><br />Dare we wish for summer to end? :-)Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-25391790189835141462007-07-12T11:29:00.000-07:002007-07-12T09:17:16.144-07:00Trademark and Logo Usage GuidelinesHowdy Eclipse committers! The committer representatives want to make sure that you are aware of the updated <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/legal/logo_guidelines.php">Trademark and Logo Usage Guidelines</a>. As Mike <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=1494&group=eclipse.foundation#1494">mentioned</a>, the big difference is that <b>project names, acronyms and logos are recognized as Eclipse trademarks</b>. If people recall the Mylar -> Mylyn <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/rename.php">transition</a>, this was the primary reason for the rename. <br /><br />To put it simply, the Eclipse Foundation takes a lot of pride in the cleanliness of the intellectual property within Eclipse. Trademarks are considered intellectual property, therefore as committers, we must ensure our project names and logos are clean. Plus, as committers, we can come up with cool and funny names like <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/tptp">TPTP</a> or <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/cosmos/">COSMOS</a> for our projects ;)Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-36842525495325467712007-06-28T11:00:00.000-07:002007-06-28T09:31:29.124-07:00June Eclipse Board Meeting OverviewFor those who didn't <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=39&group=eclipse.board.committer.reps#39">know</a>, there was an Eclipse board meeting last week. <a href="http://ed-merks.blogspot.com/">Ed</a> has already given his quick <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=40&group=eclipse.board.committer.reps#40">synopsis</a> of the meeting, but I figure I would try to give committers a general overview of what happened that's in their interest.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Intellectual Property (IP)</span><br /><br />IP was a hot topic at the board meeting for the committer representatives. Ideally, all committers would love to see the IP process be as fast as possible and less confusing. To help with some of the issues around IP and committers, a new "IP Working Group" was established to get input on what can be improved. A couple topics for the working group are:<br /><ul><li>How to improve IPZilla to make it easier for committers to use?</li><li>Can the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/parallel-ip-process.php">Parallel IP Process</a> be used by all projects, instead of just incubation ones?</li><li>Can we reduce the redundancy of legal files across Eclipse and its projects?</li></ul>Another really important topic that came across was the issue of dependencies in Eclipse. The board recently published a <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse_Policy_and_Procedure_for_3rd_Party_Dependencies_Final.pdf">document</a> that discusses different types of 3rd-party dependencies ('works with' and 'pre-reqs') guidelines and how projects need to comply. In summary, the board is trying to prevent projects to depend on components that have a license that is incompatible with the EPL and provide no other way to get similar functionality. An example that illustrates this well is the EMFT <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/emft/projects/teneo/">Teneo</a> project. Teneo allows for EMF models to be persisted in databases via its framework. Teneo allows for pluggable persistence providers like Hibernate and JPOX/JDO. If Teneo just provided the Hibernate provider with no way for other providers to be plugged in, that would violate the guidelines.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proprietary Tools<br /><br /></span><span>The board also passed a <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse_Using_Proprietary_Tools_Final.html">resolution</a> for how projects should deal with using proprietary tools. Committers should keep this in mind as the use of proprietary tools may unintentionally set a high barrier to entry for new committers on projects.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Committer Diversity<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span>The topic of project diversity was brought up and how projects can attract new committers (if need be). This is a personal issue for me as I'm more concerned how Eclipse can attract more independent committers. In the end, this is something really up to projects themselves. Ideally, all projects should have an infrastructure (ie., good documentation on how to get started) that allows for committers and contributors to participate. Eclipse is doing some good things to bring in new contributors and committers to the fold. I'm really proud of the <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Google_Summer_of_Code">Eclipse Summer of Code</a> work and I hope more projects continue to participate in this program. Also, there is work in progress to start a "<a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/BugDay">Bug Day</a>" for Eclipse which I plan to announce once it's ready.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Foxes</span><br /><br />Oh by the way, <a href="http://ed-merks.blogspot.com/">Ed</a> spotted a fox again.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinaxNYo7M8M6ctPqFgkaYZAS0kywDLArc9ZZvPJrrFuxDZq32k1D5t4GMpJFj3XZ62DvEEbqCyu7T8TTppJHTyp5FKpdynuaRZpZkeviYohoB4JwSm1hAJWnVAAEjCz7R-Ol4nZnKth5i7/s1600-h/ShyFox.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinaxNYo7M8M6ctPqFgkaYZAS0kywDLArc9ZZvPJrrFuxDZq32k1D5t4GMpJFj3XZ62DvEEbqCyu7T8TTppJHTyp5FKpdynuaRZpZkeviYohoB4JwSm1hAJWnVAAEjCz7R-Ol4nZnKth5i7/s400/ShyFox.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5081150072847259874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />On the whole, I can say that the committer representatives were very happy with the direction that the board meetings went. The board was very responsive to committer issues that were brought up, so that means if you have an issue, please <a href="news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.board.committer.reps">post something</a> and we'll do our best to respond. If you don't speak, your voice won't be heard :)</span>Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-50437483319668052122007-04-30T23:57:00.000-07:002007-04-30T17:14:36.265-07:00Culture of CollaborationCollaboration, collaboration, collaboration... how high do Eclipse committers value it? Is Eclipse missing something to help us as committers collaborate better amongst each other? I personally think so, especially after talking to some committers at <a href="http://www.eclipseforumeurope.com/">Eclipse Forum Europe</a> last week. Let me use an example from the field, there's a nameless independent committer on the Modeling project who has to use Skype, MSN, AIM, IRC and Yahoo just to communicate with his teammates (in real-time). From my point of view, that's kind of painful. For people who work in large companies where the committers on the project are mostly from the same company, it's not a problem since you have your own internal messaging system (I personally take this convenience for granted). <br /><br />In my opinion, in order for Eclipse build diversity in the future, we need to create a culture of collaboration. To put it simply, we just need an easy way to talk to each other in real-time :)<br /><br />I opened <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=126089">bug 126089</a> awhile ago with a proposed solution. The solution in its simplest form is an Eclipse Foundation XMPP server where all committers have accounts on (this would be part of getting your accounts provisioned when becoming a committer). If we really wanted to eat our own dog food, committers could use <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/ecf">ECF</a> to connect to this server (or their favorite messaging client).<br /><br />What do committers think? Is this important? Do we really need yet another messaging system? If committers support this, I and the other committer representatives will do our best to make it happen.Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-85317327725589813292007-04-18T19:13:00.000-07:002007-04-18T21:54:04.414-07:00Experiences with the Eclipse IP ProcessIn this week's <a href="http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/I20070418-1012/index.php">integration build</a> we have upgraded the org.apache.ant plugin to the <a href="http://ant.apache.org/">Apache Ant 1.7.0</a> release.<br /><br />To achieve this, I participated in the Eclipse IP process for non-EPL code...and I survived!<br /><br />Seriously, the process was smooth, easy to understand and required only a modest time investment on my part.<br />I opened the <a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/ipzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1232">request</a> on January 31, 2007 and received approval on April 13, 2007.<br /><br />Getting the approval (or denial) took much longer than I would have liked. To be honest, I was getting fairly nervous about getting a decision before the lockdown for Europa.<br />It is important for committers and the community for contributions to get in in a timely manner.<br /><br />There will very likely be bugs that the community finds in Ant 1.7.0 and our integration of Ant within Eclipse. I have found <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=175352%2C+175350%2C+182829">three</a> so far. These take time and exposure to find and fix.<br /><br />As well, I believe we are a major channel for getting the new Ant releases out to the world. We had a much longer delay than in the past This is a delay in getting all those extra eyes looking at the code and finding the bugs.<br /><br />Eclipse is a force in the open source community and we need to continue to have these strong indirect influences. Every delay in bundling or using other open source offerings potentially reduces this influence.<br /><br />Parts of the IP process that we propose could be improved:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">indication of target date</span>: similar to Eclipse bugs, an IPZilla request should be assigned a target and the target needs to be more refined than "Europa" or whatever the current release is. It made it difficult for me as a committer to plan my work not knowing when the approval would be coming. Predictability is important for any process. </li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">do the code review and board approval in parallel</span>: it took an extra 19 days for the approval while timing out on the board approval. From my understanding this change is already in the works. </li></ul> <ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">more people to handle the load</span>: we are serious about our IP process and we need to ensure that we have the people to deal with the work load. New IPZilla requests are just going to keep coming in and likely at an increased rate as the Eclipse ecosystem continues to grow.<br /></li></ul>I will be interested to see the next round when <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/ant/Ant1.7.1/Planning?highlight=%281.7.1%29">Ant 1.7.1</a> is released: how we evolve the IP process and the differences when a previous version of a contribution has already been approved.<br /><br />We are very interested in other committers experiences: what worked well, what could go more smoothly.<br />Please comment so we all can work together to make this part of Eclipse even better.Darin Swansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14947935363512132811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-3865448013161315082007-04-13T19:55:00.000-07:002007-04-13T11:20:23.979-07:00Bugzilla and FlagsHowdy committers, we just wanted to make you aware of some upcoming changes to <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/">bugzilla </a>that the Foundation (and a personal agenda of mine) has been working hard at (thanks <a href="http://eclipsewebmaster.blogspot.com/">Denis</a>).<br /><br />They are detailed in the following two bugs:<br /><ul><li>Bug <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=177815">177815</a></li><li>Bug <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=178109">178109</a></li></ul>In the simplest words, flags have been added to each bug to aid searching. The flags are:<br /><ul><li> reviewed: request a code review/flag as reviewed</li><li> pmc_approval: request PMC/project lead approval/flag as reviewed</li><li> documentation: flag to indicate documentation has been updated.</li></ul>Also, flags have been added to patches so committers have the option to +/- a patch indicating to the patch contributor that he/she should redo the patch (see picture below).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35Besurq_3RlGmdaGntKs9KAoYyNAw00lwGQMaBeZYp4NN4obt_Qh2eBvA6WqxtRvzPypETFDui0xa8T2da2dp-PTvsi9FkF79HbjhqvCgLAk5waXrOKK89RJ0r4gibZxwTaUW8-o3FUl/s1600-h/patchreview.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35Besurq_3RlGmdaGntKs9KAoYyNAw00lwGQMaBeZYp4NN4obt_Qh2eBvA6WqxtRvzPypETFDui0xa8T2da2dp-PTvsi9FkF79HbjhqvCgLAk5waXrOKK89RJ0r4gibZxwTaUW8-o3FUl/s400/patchreview.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5052975412332667730" border="0" /></a><br /><br />If people have thoughts, we encourage committers to comment on the <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=178109">bug report</a> or discuss it on the <a href="news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.board.committer.reps">newsgroups</a>.Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-48038149970978030982007-03-23T14:49:00.000-07:002007-03-23T15:14:37.323-07:00Should Bjorn and/or Ward attend board meetings?Probably many folks are just like me and have found Bjorn and Ward to be of invaluable service to the committer community. When I have questions about processes or infrastructure, these are the guys I go to for answers. Their latest work on a new <a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/portal/myfoundation/portal/portal.php">portal</a> is just one fine example; of course they had some help too from people like Karl Matthias and Sharon Corbett. I've often wondered how some of the councils could function without Bjorn's no-nonsense attitude, organizational skills, and personal dedication. Of course I've gotten mad at him before too, and anyone who knows me well knows that I may seem like a nice friendly guy, but when I get mad, it's not a pretty scene. But let's not go there! I'm learning not to do that in public. The point is, at that time I was taken aback by his extremely constructive reaction to my harsh criticism; that really made me respect him a great deal. Bjorn's a very good listener.<br /><br />So to get to the point, I think it would provide significant value to the committer community if Bjorn and/or Ward could attend Eclipse Board meetings as observers. This would help provide continuity over the years and would help both these guys to understand more about what's going on and hence be even better helpers for our community.<br /><br />I'm very curious how other folks feel about this?Ed Merkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08767888750692843294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-83082147854430729962007-03-20T23:39:00.000-07:002007-03-20T15:06:37.653-07:00Howdy Committers!Hello Eclipse Committers (and community!), this is the inaugural post on the new committer representative blog. There are five newly <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/press-release/20070301cb_elections.php">elected</a> committer representatives this year:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/candidate.php?year=2007&id=aniszczyk" target="_new">Chris Aniszczyk</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/candidate.php?year=2007&id=swanson" target="_new">Darin Swanson</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/candidate.php?year=2007&id=merks" target="_new">Ed Merks</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/candidate.php?year=2007&id=mcaffer" target="_new">Jeff McAffer</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/elections/candidate.php?year=2007&id=komissarchik" target="_new"> Konstantin Komissarchik</a></li></ul>To start things off this term with the theme of open communication, the<a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/press-release/20070301cb_elections.php"></a> committer representatives have decided to do two things:<br /><ul><li>Create a <a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/">blog</a> to keep committers aware of our activities this year.<br /></li><li>Create a <a href="news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.board.committer.reps">newsgroup</a> to facilitate discussion amongst committers and committer representatives. This newsgroup is meant for committers only and is open to the public for the purpose of transparency. The committer representatives plan to use this newsgroup as a way to work with committers to see what they desire or how they feel about a particular issue. A good example of an issue would be what to do with <a href="http://wagenknecht.org/blog/archives/2007/02/are-you-still-an-committer.html">committer status</a>? Should there be fine guidelines of when a committer would lose commit rights due to inactivity? Should there be <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/people/contributors.html">different levels</a> of so called committership? This is just an idea but we encourage committers to post their concerns regarding various issues.<br /></li></ul>In the end, we look forward to working with the committers this year in an open and transparent way. We're all ears ;)Chris Aniszczyk (zx)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3894227311622961549.post-60152033971366811672007-03-20T21:25:00.000-07:002007-03-20T22:25:35.239-07:00What the heck is a committer rep anyway?In a comment to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/14067673601779593093">Chris</a>' initial <a href="http://eclipse-committer-reps.blogspot.com/2007/03/howdy-committers.html">committer rep post</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/08736056465101896635">Eugene</a> asked:<br /><blockquote>can you please explain what committer representatives can actually do and what kind of activities should we expect from you all?</blockquote>It's a great question and I'll take a bit of space here to say what <span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span> think the committer reps can/should do.<br /><br />First and foremost we are full and regular members of the board of directors of the Eclipse Foundation, a not-for-profit yada yada, etc, etc entity. We happen to have been elected to that position but that is neither here nor there. As members of the board we have to look out for the best interests of the Foundation. So no matter what committer motivated axes we might have to grind or business models might be funding the work at Eclipse, when working on Board matters, all members must have the success of the Foundation front and center.<br /><br />Now different people have different ideas of success. That's actually what makes working on the board interesting IMHO. There are some really interesting people and discussions at the board meetings. In general, the committer reps have naturally tended to focus on things that improve the lives of committers as a way of enhancing the Foundation. Good software drives interest in membership and use which in turn drives success/security of the Foundation. Makes sense. Concretely in the past year that I have been on the board the committer elected reps have worked hard on such things as:<br /><ul><li>IP policy changes to create a fast-track process for incubating projects<br /></li><li>Improvements in infrastructure and uptime</li><li>The latest rev of the development process in particular the creation of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">mentor</span> role and the potential to rejuvenate the Architecture Council</li></ul>I just picked a random three that sprung to mind. Committer elected reps are free to join the various committees (e.g., finance, IP, ...) that focus on particular areas as they see the need and desire.<br /><br />So what should you expect from the committer representatives? More of the same I should think. Actually, last year was particularly fruitful at the Foundation level for committers IMHO. The problem is that we failed to communicate effectively what we were doing. This blog is a tangible attempt to address that failing and you should expect to see more information flowing out to you.<br /><br />It must be said that the communication issue is complicated by the fact that board discussions are confidential until the board decides to publish minutes, results, policies, ... Board members, elected or otherwise, need to take care in communicating board discussions. It comes back to the role of board members -- to act in the best interest of the Foundation. Going off and blogging that we are considering merging with NetBeans would be counter productive. Well that was a joke but you get the point.<br /><br />Turning the table around a bit, it would be good for us to hear from the committer community at large what you think we can/should do. Some information flow back to the board. Take the workareas mentioned above as template or examples of the kinds of things that board members can work to accomplish. We can't get a particular IPzilla CQ expedited but we can promote ways of streamlining the IP process. We can't go to project X and demand better quality but we can help put in place a mentorship program that would help X be more successful.<br /><br />The committer elected board representatives are one of several windows the board has onto the committer community and vice versa. We should seek to be as transparent as is legally possible and act as a lens in focusing committer issues into items on which the board can take action.Jeff McAfferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15449420799600760247noreply@blogger.com2